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How to stop Islamic extremism: Global Fiqh Council (GFC)

Stop buying their pertrol...

You cannot stop buying it, its a commodity and when it gets into world market everyone buys it. The extremist ideologies are supported by certain regimes, they need to be removed from power, but instead of removing them the West have put them in place and are protecting them, even from their own off shoot extremist by products, so it is a vicious cycle that the West have both created and are keeping in place. It is up to the West to dismantle this cycle, no one else can do it for them.
 
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An excellent column on conflicting vested interests in the Middle East and lack of spine among Pakistani politicians to confront the extremists head-on.

Ayaz Amir
- Tuesday, November 17, 2015 -


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Islamabad diary

The present turmoil began from Syria and from the desire of a range of countries, western and Arab and including Turkey, to get rid of Bashar al-Assad. By aiding the opposition to Assad they helped fuel the fires of civil war in Syria and created a vacuum out of which arose the demon now casting its terror shadow far and wide: Islamic State or Daesh.

And those countries obsessed by Assad are still not getting it. Instead of focusing on Daesh they keep being distracted by Assad. This helps Daesh which has displayed an astonishing ability to hit a wide array of targets: from bringing down a Russian airliner over the Sinai and carrying out suicide bombings at a Hezbollah neighbourhood in Beirut to the most breathtaking atrocity of all, the attacks in Paris.

Our Arab friends are the most confused. The Saudis see only Assad. For them everything else comes afterwards. Iran also weighs on their minds and to add to their woes they find themselves stuck in Yemen where the civil war is dragging on without leading to a decisive outcome.

The Americans are confused too, their attention and concern divided between Daesh and Assad. Whatever the nature of the Assad regime – or what remains of that regime because Daesh controls large stretches of the country – it represents the last symbol of authority in a chaotic situation. Get rid of Assad and there’s no knowing where that will lead.

Britain, France and the United States – with no small help from Qatar – have already tried their hands at regime change in Libya and we know what those efforts have yielded: a state which no longer looks like a state. Thriving on turmoil, Daesh now has a presence in Libya. The US and its allies have tried to do a Libya on Syria and would have succeeded if Assad had not held on…with powerful backing from Iran, Hezbollah and Russia.

Vladimir Putin is trying to instil some sense into the west, saying that while a political transition is a necessity it should wait as long as Deash is not tackled. Putin tried to forge a common front with the Saudis over this but the Saudis have no time for this reasoning. They want Assad to go, regardless of what this entails. In their eyes apart from his other sins, he is an Alawite Shia, and is friends with Iran and is supported by the Shiite Hezbollah, all of which adds up to unforgivable heresy.

Israel’s enemies are also Iran, Hezbollah and Assad – which makes for a nice convergence of interests between them and the Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques. Sometimes it is hard to decide whether the world of Islam should fear itself more or its enemies.

The only way to deal with Daesh is to focus on it and put Assad on the backburner. There will be time enough for a post-Assad transition when the threat from Daesh is eliminated. But can the western powers, especially the Americans, agree on this? My guess is they can’t. Agreeing to this approach means agreeing to the Russian and Iranian viewpoints and that would be too much humble pie for the Americans to swallow.

Pakistan can only look on from a distance. We are not directly involved in all this and it is not for us to give unsolicited advice. But we are concerned with that other centre of turmoil and instability, Afghanistan, because we are next to it and have had our fingers burned by Afghanistan in the past and may yet experience something like that again before peace returns to that troubled land.

The American intervention was a disaster for us because it pushed the Taliban onto our side of the border. And because Pakistan had sided with the Americans – our commanding generals thinking that was in our best interests, and in their best interest as well – the Taliban promptly declared war on Pakistan and quickly turned it into the world’s biggest terrorist battlefield. This situation was reversed, and the tide of violence and terrorism checked, only when the army declared war on the Pakistani Taliban.

But the danger has not passed. Afghanistan remains unsettled and the Taliban remain the most powerful force in the country. They haven’t withstood the American invasion for 13-14 years to lay down their arms now and go home. Their war aim is not compromise. It is to rule Afghanistan again.

It is a measure of how far the Americans have come that they now accept the Taliban as a party to a negotiated settlement. This is the logic of war. That the Taliban withstood the American is why they are being taken seriously, which is all the more reason for Pakistan not to over-estimate the extent of its influence over the Taliban. Pakistan can be a facilitator of sorts. But it can deliver nothing concrete, nor should it try anything along those lines. The Afghan situation will settle according to its own dynamics.

The worst thing to do in Afghanistan is to take sides. It achieves nothing, does not even achieve leverage, and makes an enemy of everyone by feeding Afghan prejudices.

We should look to our own house. We can do nothing for Syria. We can do little for Afghanistan. But we have an obligation to ourselves to eliminate the last traces of terrorism and violence from our land and work to make this a better country.

The days of so-called ‘jihad’ are over. We have to get this into our addled minds. Hafiz Saeed can be made chief relief commissioner, he can even be given an official position, but the kind of stuff at which he specialised is no longer affordable. As for Maulana Aziz of Lal Masjid…he and his followers triggered a full-fledged army assault in the heart of the capital. And he is trying to stage a comeback. Would such a person with his track record be allowed this freedom in any other country? Does the civilian administration also have some responsibility or must the army do everything?

Many of us are still living in the past. This is not Gen Zia’s era or Gen Musharraf’s. Time has moved on and compared to Daesh Al-Qaeda and what it stood for look dated. In those much simpler times the theatre of ‘jihad’ was only one – Pakistan’s western borderlands and Afghanistan. Now the theatre of violence stretches from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria and Libya. And Europe is feeling the effects of this upsurge in the form of the tidal waves of refugees washing on its shores.

That Pakistan has been able to keep itself relatively secure in the midst of all this upheaval is due largely to the decisions and actions of its armed forces. Many of Pakistan’s previous troubles were because of faulty decisions taken by the military. But it is no small mercy that in this new era of disorder, the military, far from repeating past follies, has turned a page and is taking the correct decisions.

Leadership should really have come from the civilians. But since, unfortunately, they shirked the responsibility the challenge was taken up by others.

The thing to remember: Pakistan cannot afford a one-step forward and two-steps back approach. It cannot afford any backsliding from the course adopted by the military. How to ensure continuity so that Pakistan remains safe and secure amidst the turmoil racking the world of Islam? This today is the nation’s foremost problem.

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com

The West still not getting it - Ayaz Amir
 
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Salafi movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Salafi jihadism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Salaf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The root of all problems started with the appearance of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his followers. It will not be solved till they are removed from all govt. institutions and seats of power in the Muslim world and thus remove the financial resources behind the spread of this deviant ideology. The US and EU are protecting them and guaranteeing their security. Why they are protecting them, because they were at one time used by the West to take down the Ottoman empire and now they are security guards guarding West's oil and gas reserves in mid-east, while Israel is chief security guard among them.

May be the Chinese will take them down when and if the West loses supremacy in face of Chinese technological achievement. But sometimes I wonder, if these Salafi followers of Wahhab are the best guarantee to keep Muslims weak and fragmented, then why world powers should not keep them in place? So the Chinese may not even do it. Muslim world becoming democratic, developed, strong and united is after all not in the interest of the rest of the world powers. Chinese may rehire these security guards to work for them.

And what better way is there to malign the whole Muslim world, than to equate all 1.6 billion of them with these rotten followers of Wahhab? I for one would like to see them declared as a separate sect like the Shia, so they can carry on with their fight with the Shia and keep real Sunni's out of their mess. Lets call this new sect, the Salafi, which the word they like to use, but it is a misnomer, because I do not believe they are anything like the early Muslims or the Salaf. So I think the Wahhabi name is a more accurate description for them, as they all revere and follow the ideas of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
 
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Another good article on ISIS.

Kamila Hyat
- Thursday, November 19, 2015 - From Print Edition



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The writer is a freelance columnist

and former newspaper editor.

Over 50 members of the Shia community are slain outside a Hezbollah-run hospital in Beirut. About 129 people are killed in multiple gun and bomb attacks also carried out by Islamic State militants. A Russian airliner is blown apart over Sinai by IS gunmen, killing all 224 on board.

A proxy war continues between world powers in Syria from where five million have fled and 7.5 million rendered homeless. And the sinister black flag of IS flutters over refugee camps in Palestine, over towns in Syria, at locations in Tripoli and at many other sites in the Middle East. It is painted onto walls in Karachi too.

According to the more conservative estimates, some 300,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011. More and more groups have been drawn in, the IS opposing the Baathist Party led by Bashar al-Assad who succeeded his father Hafiz al-Assad in 2000, when Syria’s leader since the early 1970s died.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah supports Assad against the violently anti-Shia IS, other home-grown outfits of all kinds are involved including ‘moderate’ Shia and Sunni groups, the US, the UK, France and other western powers conduct raids against Assad on the grounds they are backing protesters who rose against Assad during the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2012. Ironically enough they battle on the same side as the IS, while claiming to support ‘moderates’, and also bombing IS targets to complicate matters still further.

France has been most active in air raids against the IS. Assad’s depleted forces now control barely 30 percent of Syria. Russia backs its old ally, Assad, whose father had maintained close links with Moscow through his three decades in power. North Korea and Venezuela have also backed Assad in various ways, with Greece doing so most sensibly of all by providing much needed LPG to keep Syria running.

The Turks have also moved in, but oddly enough instead of helping to resolve the civil war in any way, they have begun bombing Syria’s minority Kurdish population, opening up a new front of violence against a people who have been persecuted across the region.

The war has spilled over into Lebanon where the IS also asserts its power with the country’s parliament paralysed due to ethnic and religious divides and unable to reach any agreement on how to elect their next president. There are reminders of the time some 25 years ago when Lebanon was caught up in its own civil war with diverse ethnic and religious groups locked in battle against each other. An agreement on an equitable division within parliament eventually helped settle this crippling battle. The impact is felt in Iraq, in Libya and across the Middle East. It was almost inevitable given the involvement of the west that it would be felt in places like Paris.

This does not mean we can in any way justify or condone what happened in Paris as masked gunmen belonging to the world’s most feared terrorist group created mayhem and terror. But as Facebook offers a feature allowing profile pictures to be turned red, white and blue in solidarity with France, there is nothing to allow us to so easily stand with the beleaguered people of Syria with their tricolored, the red stripe of which depicts bloodshed, the people of Iraq and its own red, white and black emblem or the people of Lebanon, whose flag is dominated by the symbolic cedar tree which covers the snow-clad mountains of Lebanon and is intended as a symbol of the stability the country has once more lost.

The symbolism is a reminder of the ways minds are manipulated. We are essentially being told certain lives matter more than others; that those who died in Paris are more important than those who die every day in other parts of the world. The media and governments manipulate us to think in this manner, and we fall in line with what is essentially propaganda – a way to make us believe blindly in certain ways of looking at the world.

We need to think a little more. In our own country, while there has been debate over what happened in France triggered by the massive media coverage the bombings naturally attracted, there has been too little thought about the massacres that take place on a regular basis in the Middle East, ironically so much closer to our own land, or to the people who have fled the fighting. Life for these refugees in Europe will undoubtedly be more miserable now.

But like most other countries in the Muslim world, Pakistan has little to say on this. Few of us really understand the admittedly intricate complexities of the Syrian civil war or have even attempted to do so. Only a few commentators speak out for the people of what is perhaps the world’s most wronged country at this current moment in time. Many of them are westerners.

It is also shocking how we have come to accept violence in our own land. From children, following television images coming out of Paris, there was some scoffing at a death toll of ‘only’ 127. We are used to death, and we seem to like it better when the numbers are higher. It has become like a game of cricket, nothing more than that. The higher the score, the better the game. Death means nothing to a generation that has grown up with violence and horror all around it.

We are also doing too little to fight back this horror. In our own country, more people died in December last year at the Army Public School in Peshawar than the number killed in Paris. Yes, candles were lit for them. There were vigils. There is talk now of a holiday to mark the occasion – although this would probably mean a day when we think of matters far removed from the blood that spilled at that school.

On the whole, however, we did very little to keep the killing alive in minds. The world did less. The kind of media coverage we see from Paris did not come and, like the rosary beads spun through the centuries, the media has become our new rosary. We believe only what it puts out. Much of it is a deception; a distortion of the truth. We do not question what it says.

The violence is closing in on us as a nation with every passing day. There is a real risk that the IS may assume a bigger role in the country. It has already claimed responsibility for several of the most violent terrorist attacks carried out in our cities. Whether or not these claims are strictly accurate, the fact is that we live in the heart of terror. Our institutions may today be battling over whose responsibility it is to rid us of this. But it will take a massive effort, involving all of us, for militancy to be beaten back and the suicide bombings which have become the norm for us stopped.

We must condemn the happenings in Paris; we must mourn for that beautiful city and the equally beautiful city of Beirut in Lebanon and the historical wonderlands that comprise Syria – a place that brings together almost every religion in the world. But we must also mourn for our own country, for what it has become and for what lies ahead for it in the future.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com
A war on the mind - Kamila Hyat


Any foreigner can be thrown out of the Middle East countries and no non-Arab Muslim, no matter how he has resided in Saudi Arabia has an automatic right of citizenship. Suppose France throws out all the Muslims as a result, what then?

Urdu press is still full of extremists’ sympathisers. Urdu colmnists attempt to explain reasons for the attack by citing examples Western excesses against the Muslims. As long as Pakistani do not realize that killing innocents civilians cannot be justified by quoting how badly Western government’s behave towards Muslims. This madness will continue in Pakistan.

I quote two columns as an example:

One by Jamaat Islami member Dr Paracha

Dr Hussain Ahmed Paracha - Hukum e Azaan - France mae Dehshatgardi - Jang Columns

And the other by Ansar Abbasi- another extremist / Lal Masjid lover

Ansar Abbasi - Kis se Munsafi Chahien - Humare "Danishwaran e mekadah - Jang Columns
 
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I don't agree with Ayaz Amir's conclusions because in my view actions by the West favouring Shiites could twist the Saudi Vs Iran conflict into a world-wide Shia-Sunni conflict with disastrous consequences.

Since the Daesh fighters would be in the forefront of any sectarian war; Salafi/Takfiris would emerge as the dominant force. Hence, we could experience a world-wide Muslims vs non-Muslim conflict as the final consequence. I would therefore prefer moderate Sunnis & Arab nationalists to fight the ISIS instead. Nevertheless it is a food for thought.

Ayaz Amir
- Friday, November 20, 2015 - From Print Edition


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Islamabad diary

Daesh or the Islamic State is the most extreme form of Salafist Islam, so toxic that it makes the Taliban look mild and Al-Qaeda look like a backward cousin. Al-Qaeda was only an ideology, Daesh is ideology plus geography. Al-Qaeda tried to hijack the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Daesh has managed to create its own emirate.

Daesh has a treasury and oil resources, and a functioning bureaucracy. In the territory it controls it acts very much like a state, although its own preferred term is caliphate, with its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, styling himself as caliph.

Daesh, it is sobering to reflect, has an active presence not only in Iraq and Syria but Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, a small footprint in Afghanistan and adherents, even cells, in a number of European countries with large Muslim populations. The Paris attacks were planned and carried out largely by ‘jihadists’ based in Belgium and France.

It is foolish of Pakistani officials to say that Daesh has no presence in Pakistan. The ‘jihadist’ soil cultivated in Pakistan – and how diligently and with what care it was cultivated – is conducive to the growth of all brands and forms of Salafist extremism. The various lashkars – lashkar-e-this and harkat-e-that – are all mutations from the original trunk of Salafist Islam.

An explanation is in order here. Salafis believe that all those not following the true faith – as defined by them – are apostates worthy of death. Sectarianism and killing on the basis of sect flow from this reading of the faith.

Pakistan as a result of the Afghan ‘jihad’ took out the first franchise on extremist or radical Islam. The CIA chipped in as did the Saudis, turning Pakistan into an experimental garden of ‘jihad’ and our then generals, Gen Zia and his coterie, felt proud about that achievement. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union broke up they claimed that the seeds of Soviet dissolution were sown in Afghanistan.

The Americans, their purpose of bleeding the Russians achieved, walked away from Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan to hold the dishes and the used linen.

Pakistan still has no shortage of Salafist warriors who want to turn this into their dream emirate. But they are lying low or are on the run because the army which early on had promoted ‘jihad’ as a tool of strategy has reversed course. The old doctrines have been abandoned, or abandoned to a great extent, as the army seeks to set – for itself and the country – a new direction.

Mercifully, Daesh has also come to Pakistan’s rescue for the baton of extremism, passing from Pakistani hands, is now firmly in Daesh’s possession. Today the flag of extremism flutters over the Islamic State, and it is a bigger threat to the west than Al-Qaeda ever was. Afghanistan which became Al-Qaeda’s principal base was at a distance from Europe. Daesh is on Europe’s doorsteps. It has a stronger European connection than Al-Qaeda ever had.

Daesh, be it remembered, is a direct outcome of America’s Iraq war. Many Daesh leaders are graduates of America’s detention centres in Iraq, most notably Bakuba prison south of Baghdad. Al Baghdadi himself spent time there. Key members of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence apparatus are now in Daesh’s service.

But having sown the wind, the United States is utterly confused about how to deal with the whirlwind. Belatedly it has woken up to the danger of Daesh, as have its European allies including France. But the fight against Daesh is hampered because the west is trying to climb two trees at the same time. It wants to finish Daesh and it also wants Bashar al-Assad to go.

The Paris attacks are focusing minds and helping clear some of this confusion. Slowly, perhaps a bit too slowly, the perception is gaining ground in western minds that the bigger danger is from Daesh. Still there is a long way to go before this perception gels into a true change of heart and a change of policy.

Yoked to the Americans in this confusion are France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, all more desperate about regime change in Syria than the fight against Daesh. Britain would have joined France in carrying out bombing runs over Syria if the House of Commons had not refused permission. Behind Europe’s refugee crisis is this meddling in Syria. And now the fallout from Syria has been felt in the streets of Paris.

We have to be clear about the present division in the world of Islam. Against Assad, apart from the west, are the Sunni states of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Backing Assad and holding up his defences are Shia Iran and Shia Hezbollah. Behind them looms the presence of the virtual imam of this constellation: Vladimir Putin. The US stands on one side of this divide, Russia on the other. Let’s not forget that Iran is holding the line in Iraq too. But for its active intervention Daesh would have been at the gates of Baghdad.

So the harsh truth is that the Sunni states are beset by other mirages. Turkey’s Erdogan has lost his way in Syria. The Saudis can’t abide Iran and Hezbollah. The Americans have much the same problem. And they can’t swallow Russia’s role in Syria because it reminds them too much of Ukraine and Crimea. Daesh is the ultimate beneficiary of all this confusion and dithering.

The real bulwark against Daesh is thus neither the west nor the Sunni states. It is the Shia constellation aided by Russia. If Daesh is to be defeated it will be by this constellation, not the ghost militias the Americans are trying to create…a programme which has been an utter fiasco.

The Americans don’t want to fight themselves. They don’t want Assad to survive or Hezbollah to have anything to do with Syria. But they want Daesh to disappear. They want to fight Daesh through proxies. Unfortunately, this is not the Afghan ‘jihad’. There are no Afghans or Pakistanis who can fight for the Americans (on the cheap) in Syria.

After all the bombing runs, Daesh will have to be confronted on the ground. But who will do that? None of the tough talkers have the stomach for boots on the ground. In the Syrian context they are all paper tigers…and the Saudis little better than a hollow drum. Even their petrodollars are not what they used to be.

Who has troops on the ground? Assad and Hezbollah. That’s it. The rest is all talk and flummery. Backing them are Iran and Russia with Putin committing air-power to help Assad.

Daesh now threatens not just Iraq and Syria but Europe and the western way of life. But it won’t be defeated by wishes and hand-wringing. Only the Shia constellation backed by Russia, and not spooked by western meddling, can turn the tide. Can the Europeans and the Americans bring themselves to recognise this?

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com
Iran, Hezbollah and Russia…the real coalition - Ayaz Amir
 
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There is no possible solution .

Extremism is a part of Human nature . It can stay hidden but one can never eliminate it .
 
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Why do people follow the Hadith's when they could be false?
 
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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:

  1. That their interpretations are acceptable in terms of Arabic language;
  2. That they have exhaustive mastery of all the primary texts that relate to each question, and
  3. 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 Hanbaliand 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”
    1. 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

    2. 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….

    3. 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…


    4. 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
    5. 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.

    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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!

    10. 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.
    11. 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.

    12. Abdul HAMID

      April 12, 2012 at 11:12 PM
      Jazkahallah khair only one thing ibn kathir rahimullah was shafi not hanbali .

    13. 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.
    14. 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
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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
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. 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
saw.png
, 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
saw.png
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 pm3 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.
 
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A joint united , Muslim scholrs council giving a fatwaa against terrorism & a united anti-terror force with mix up of different Muslim armies & united joint operation will surly finish the fitna for a long time to come ?
 
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A joint united , Muslim scholrs council giving a fatwaa against terrorism & a united anti-terror force with mix up of different Muslim armies & united joint operation will surly finish the fitna for a long time to come ?

Indeed, that is what I am trying to say in this thread. Gulfies have taken the center stage using their oil money, now that oil is cheap and their money is down, this must take shape with Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh. Salafi's meant well with their drive for purification, but clearly their effort at purification has become toxic for the Sunni Muslim world and humanity in general. We need a global Sunni effort, as terrorism is mostly a Sunni problem. Shia's can sort out their own problems.

You can bring armies together later, but first the fiqh matter must be set straight, then the rest can follow, which is a matter that is not for this thread.

Every time there is an opening of destabilization and opportunity for change, Jihadi Salafi's have taken advantage and made a mess of the whole situation, the result is what we see today in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Philippines etc. - any place there is conflict, they are there.

Idea's must be fought with ideas.
 
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I have a more simple version for explaining ISIS than the one below, in one word Salafi/Wahabi. How to stop it? Removing Salafi/Wahabi source of ideas and their financing ability from the world, starting with Gulf kingdoms.

This one-sentence explanation of ISIS is brilliant - Vox

This one-sentence explanation of ISIS is brilliant
Updated by Zack Beauchamp on December 3, 2015, 9:10 a.m. ET @zackbeauchamp zack@vox.com

TWEET SHARE long, complicated, and almost impossible to explain simply. But this tweet, from the brilliant Lebanese writer Karl Sharro, does the near impossible — it provides a really smart explanation of ISIS's rise that's only a sentence long. It is, to be fair, a very long sentence:

CVJR-RAUYAA7tKv.jpg


Sharro's tweet is, first and foremost, a brutal satire of simple explanations of ISIS's rise — like Thomas Piketty's somewhat silly claim that ISIS is the result of economic inequality. ISIS is a multifaceted problem that arose from a number of deeply ingrained issues in the Arab world. It defies the simple one-line explanations that pundits like to gravitate toward.

Yet it's also a really cogent, concise explanation of the big-picture story behind ISIS's rise. Broken down into more palatable bits, Sharro is telling a story that spans from the early 20th century all the way to the present:

  • After the end of British, French, and Ottoman imperial rule in the early to mid-20th century, Arab leaders failed to establish anything like stable democratic societies. Instead, they imposed unpopular and brutal military dictatorships that prevented any real sense of national unity developing and squandered the region's economic potential.
  • The Middle East's progressive and democratic parties failed, due to a combination of incompetence and interference, to put together a viable alternative to these regimes.
  • This created a large population of people in the Middle East who were disenfranchised and looking for a new form of politics. During and after the Cold War, Islamism rose to fill that void: It appealed to an identity and a set of values that many in the Middle East shared and understood. This was part of a global revival of different forms of identity politics.
  • Some governments — like Saudi Arabia's quasi-monarchy, quasi-theocracy — had an interest in helping spreading a fairly hard-line version of Islam, as it shored up domestic legitimacy. Radical Islamism also got a boost from foreign powers, as things like US support for Iran's brutal shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan created understandable resentment that radicals were well-positioned to support.
  • More recently, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring threw the Middle East's normal geopolitical order into chaos, creating a vacuum in which sectarianism (encouraged by a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia) became a powerful force. ISIS flourished in this kind of religiously polarized chaos, bringing us to the point we're at today.
That's long and complicated! Yet Sharro's tweet does an excellent job distilling it down to its core — while simultaneously reminding us that pundits claiming to have a simple explanation for ISIS's rise usually don't.
 
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Wahhabis and Salafis are not Sunnis | Conspiracy School

WAHHABIS AND SALAFIS ARE NOT SUNNIS
Submitted by David Livingstone on Sun, 08/02/2015 - 16:15
salafi-rage-boy.jpg

IJTIHAD
There have been numerous sects that have splintered from the main body of Islam, and all have clearly defined themselves as separate traditions. None have been so clever and wily, and so successfully imposed their pernicious influence, as the Wahhabis and Salafis, who have insinuated themselves instead as a “reform” movement within Sunni Islam. Instead, they have characterized Sunni Islam as being founded on belief in the rightful successorship of the four righteous Caliphs, in contradistinction to Saudi Arabia’s traditional enemies, the Shiah of Iran.

Rather, the Wahhabis and Salafis represent a consequence of a wave of “revivalist” movements that began to emerge in the eighteenth century, sponsored by the British, with the aim of undermining Sunni Islam, which has historically been founded on following one of the four schools of legal interpretation, known as Madhhabs, a practice known as Taqlid.

Known for their nefarious strategy of Divide and Conquer, the British were intent on re-writing the laws of Islam to suit their purposes. However, Sunni Islam had formalized a highly sophisticated legal tradition that was effectively impervious to outside influence. According to Joseph Schacht, the renowned historian of Islamic Law:

Islamic law provides us with a remarkable example of the possibilities of legal thought and of human thought in general, and with a key to understanding the essence of one of the great world religions.[1]

Within the first few centuries of its existence, these Madhhabs had settled the majority of the early legal questions in Islam, and strictly forbade the use of unqualified independent reasoning, known as Ijtihad, in order to protect the sanctity of Islam from violation. However, what all the British-sponsored “revivalists” held in common was a rejection of the Madhhab tradition, in favour of re-opening the Doors of Itjihad, which has resulted in the wholesale rewriting Islam, in order to lend false justification to the injustices they currently perpetrate under its name.

Initially, the followers of Mohammed, known as the Sahabah, would seek advice from those amongst themselves who had attained reputations for piety and advanced knowledge of the religion. However, as the Muslim empire expanded, the cases that required rulings became increasingly complex, and because they were not necessarily explicitly addressed in the Quran, it became necessary for judges (Qadis) to make use of their independent reasoning (Ijtihad). The word “Ijtihad” is derived from the same root as the word “Jihad,” and means to strive with one’s utmost effort.

Ijtihad is considered legitimized in a Hadith that refers to a consultation between the Prophet Mohammed and Muadh Ibn Jabl, a jurist who was on his way to Yemen. The Prophet asked Muadh how he would decide matters brought before him. He responded: “I will judge matters according to the Quran.” He then said, “If the Book of God contains nothing to guide me, I will act on the precedents of the Prophet of God, and if it is not in that either, then I will make Ijtihad [use his reason] and judge according to that.” The Prophet is said to have been very pleased with the reply.[2]

Over time, rulings became increasingly codified through consensus (Ijma), unanimous agreement that was considered to reflect divine sanction. However, a new body of literature became available, known as Hadith, and comprising of saying reported from Muhammad. Therefore, Ijtihad came to be restricted to reasoning confined by recourse to available sources of evidence and accepted methodologies. These included the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet, consensus of the community (Ijma), and analogy (Qiyas) or systematic reasoning.

Imam Shafi (767–820 AD) had been instrumental in bringing about this change, producing a system known as Usul al Fiqh. Then, through the communal process of collating the evidence and developing rulings, there initially emerged many different schools of thought and interpretation, but the reputations of only four surpassed and finally eclipsed the others. These are known as the four Madhhabs, each named after the scholars who founded them, being the Shafi of Imam Shafi, the Hanafi of Imam Abu Hanifa (699–767 AD), the Hanbali of Ahmed Ibn Hanbal (780–855 AD), and Maliki of Imam Malik (711–795 AD).

According to a well-known Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad said “differences of opinion among my community are a blessing,” and therefore, despite their differences, each school was considered as founded on valid conclusions, arrived at through the rigorous process of Ijtihad. Ultimately, as noted by Schacht:

By the beginning of the fourth century of the hijra (about A.D. 900)… the point had been reached when the scholars of all schools felt that all essential questions had been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that from that time onwards no one might be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at the most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all.[3]

This consensus is referred to as the “Closing of the Doors of Ijtihad.” As for the common Muslim, he would from then on be required to follow one—and only one—of the four Madhhabs, a practice known as Taqlid. While it is possible, and even commendable, for any Muslim to read the Quran and Hadith on his own, when it comes to formulating rulings from these sources, or Ijtihad, it requires an advanced degree of knowledge. Therefore, from that point forward, the free use of Ijtihad was restricted to only those most qualified, known as a Mujtahid, being the four Imams, for which extensive and stringent requirements were put forward.

The closing of Ijtihad effectively acted as a fortress to protect Islamic law from any further controversy, and preserve the formulations of the most pious and talented of the Muslim scholars from corruption. As explained by Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), considered one of the fathers of modern historiography, and as one of the greatest philosophers of the Muslim world:

The people after that were able to close the door in the face of dispute at a time when terminology became more complex, and it was harder to achieve the rank ofIjtihad, and when it was feared that [Ijtihad] might get attributed to someone not from its people [an incompetent], who is not to be relied upon in neither his opinion nor his religion.[4]

IBN TAYMIYYAH
However, what all the revivalists held in common was following the precedent of a controversial Muslim scholar named Ibn Taymiyya (1263 - 1328). For his various controversial rulings and anthropomorphic doctrine, Ibn Taymiyya spent much of his career in jail. It was for his typical intemperance that Arab historian Ibn Battuta declared that Ibn Taymiyyah had a “screw loose.”[5] Opinions about Ibn Taymiyyah during his lifetime varied widely. One of his opponents, who had the most success in refuting his views, was Taqi al Din Al Subki, who remarked, "his learning exceeded his intelligence."[6]

Ibn Taymiyyah’s legal ideas remained largely in the framework of the Hanbali school, but his more controversial doctrines were adopted from the more anthropomorphic faction of the Hanbali school, though not representing the tenets professed by Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal or his Madhhab. This Hanbali faction was opposed to the Ash’ari and Maturidi schools who have represented the Aqida, or “tenets of belief,” of the majority of Sunni Muslims, just as the Madhhabs have represented theSharia or “Sacred Law.”[7]

Those opposed to these two traditional schools of Aqida are regarded as people of Biddah, defined in a Fatwa or formal legal opinion the sixteenth century by Imam Ibn Hajar Haytami, who represents the foremost resource for legal opinion in the entire late Shafi school, as: “whoever is upon other than the path of Ahl al-Sunna wa l-Jama‘a [people of the Sunnah and of the majority], Ahl al-Sunna wa l-Jama‘a meaning the followers of Sheikh Abul Hasan Ash‘ari and Abu Mansur Maturidi, the two Imams of Ahl al-Sunna.”[8]

Although Ibn Taymiyyah is remember by this adherents today as a vociferous opponent of the Sufis, he was a follower of Abdul Qadir al Gilani (1077–1166), the founder of the Qadiriyya Sufi order, which is particularly venerated in the Western occult tradition, where it is seen by some as the origin of the Rosicrucian movement.[9] Gilani was also condemned for harboring heretical works in his school, particularly the writings of the Brethren of Sincerity, whose works were admired by generations of Kabbalists.[10] According to Chacham Israel Joseph Benjamin II in Eight Years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855, Gilani “was nothing less than the famous Talmudist Joseph Hagueliti.”[11]

After three centuries of his views being scrutinized by the leading scholars of the time, like al Subki and others, a Fatwa was finally pronounced by Ibn Hajar al Haytami in the sixteenth century, which declared:

Ibn Taymiyyah is a servant whom God forsook, misguided, blinded, deafened, and debased. That is the declaration of the imams who have exposed the corruption of his positions and the mendacity of his sayings. Whoever wishes to pursue this must read the words of the Mujtahid Imam Abu al Hasan al Subki, of his son Taj al Din Subki, of the Imam al Izz ibn Jama and others of the Shafi, Maliki, and Hanafi scholars... It must be considered that he is a misguided and misguiding innovator and an ignorant who brought evil whom God treated with His justice. May He protect us from the likes of his path, doctrine, and actions.[12]

SALAFISM
In their rejection of traditional Islam, all revivalists singled out Ibn Taymiyyah as the pre-eminent classical scholar, whose unique but controversial approach to the subject provided them with a precedent in their calls for a re-opening of the Doors ofIjtihad. As Joseph Schacht explained:

From the eighth/fourteenth century onwards the Hanbali school declined and seemed on the verge of extinction, when the puritanical movement of the Wahhabis of the twelfth/eighteenth century and especially the Wahhabi revival in the present century, gave it a new lease of life. The religious founder of this movement, Muhammad ibn Adb al Wahhab (d. 1201/1787), was influenced by the works of Ibn Taymiyyah. Whereas the Hanbali school had always been regarded by orthodox Islam as one of the legitimate schools of law, the intolerant attitude of the earlier Wahhabis towards their fellow Muslims caused them for a long time to be suspected as heretics, and they have come to be generally considered orthodox only since their political successes in the present generation.[13]

Wahhabism as founded by Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, in the seventeenth century, who according to the Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, was a British agent. Though the authenticity of the work has been questioned, in 1888, Ayyub Sabri Pasha, a well-known Ottoman writer and Turkish naval admiral who served the Ottoman army in the Arabian Peninsula, recounted Wahhab’s association and plotting with a British spy named Hempher. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Defense released a translation of an Iraqi intelligence document in September 2002, titled “The Emergence of Wahhabism and its Historical Roots,” which indicates that Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, and his sponsor ibn Saud, who created the Saudi dynasty that now rules Saudi Arabia, were reported by several sources as being secretly of Jewish origin.[14]

Ultimately, Wahhab instigated the rejection of Taqlid, or following a Madhhab, in favor of re-opening the Doors of Ijtihad, which is the bedrock of the platform of the modern Salafi movement. Salafism begins with Jamal ud Din al Afghani, who was the Grand Master of Egyptian Freemasonry, as well as purported member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, which supposedly also represented a revival of the Brethren of Sincerity. According to K. Paul Johnson, he was also chiefly responsible for the central teachings of H. P. Blavatsky, who is regarded as the godmother of the New Age movement, and whose books are considered “scriptures” of Freemasonry.[15] In Afghani’s own words, as cited in Elie Kedourie, Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam:

We do not cut off the head of religion except with the sword of religion. Therefore, if you were to see us now, you would see ascetics and worshipers, kneeling and genuflecting, never disobeying God’s commands and doing all that they are ordered to do.[16]

Afghani’s Salafi movement exploited the vacuum left behind by the collapse of traditional scholarship in the wake of British colonialism. Leading a modernist trend, they suggested that the deteriorating condition of the Muslims was due to their inability to mirror the institutions or technology of the Europeans. Therefore, Afghani and the Salafis insisted that a return toIjtihad was needed, claiming that the Ijma of the scholars to close the “Gates of Ijtihad” was merely in response to political pressures, and had contributed to a period of “intellectual stagnation.” Effectively, as was typical of the Revivalists, the Salafis maintained that it was necessary to circumvent the teachings of the Madhhabs, and go “directly” to the sources, the religion of the forefathers, known as the Salaf, from which they gained their name.

WAHHABIS
Today, the Wahhabis reject the early Salafis for their Masonic affiliations, but have nevertheless retained the appellation. Chief among their influences was Muhammad Nasiruddin Al Albani (1914 – 1999), who began his career by becoming influenced by articles in al Manar, the mouthpiece of Rashid Rida, a Freemason and successor to Afghani’s leading pupil, Mohammed Abduh. Al Albani also studied under a student of Qasimi of Damascus, who was among the chief Revivalists responsible for reviving Ibn Taymiyyah’s reputation. Albani was first expelled from Syria, and then accepted a post in Saudi Arabia on the invitation of its chief Mufti, Ibn Baz, who would continue to support him throughout his career.

Al Albani’s trouble with the Saudis began when his pronouncements against Taqlid as “blind following” went so far that he even criticized the Saudis’ partial adherence to the Hanbali tradition. He went so far as to declare that the founder of Wahhabism himself, Ibn Abdul Wahhab, was not a true “Salafi” for following the Hanbali Madhhab. To al Albani, Hadith alone can provide answers to matters not found in the Quran, without relying on the Madhhabs.[17] To al Albani, the mother of all religious sciences therefore becomes the “science of hadith,” through which he claimed to have identified over five thousand among them to be suspect.

Despite their differences with him otherwise, the Saudi state made use of al Albani's criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood to lend supposed religious authority to their agenda. Although the Saudis assisted the CIA in giving refuge to the Muslim Brotherhood, following a failed assassination attempt against Gamal Nasser in 1954, its members contributed to a wave of criticism against the state known as the Sahwa.

However, al Albani was the first among the Saudi scholars to dare to criticize the organization. His primary complaint against the Brotherhood was that they placed too much emphasis on “politics” instead of knowledge (Ilm) and creed (Aqeedah). Essentially, al Albani characterized all criticism of the state as futile banter, which disregarded the more pressing issue of reforming society which had fallen away from a “pure” understanding of Islam, in the perverted Wahhabi sense.

Thus, exploiting the reputation of al Albani, the Saudi state purged the university system of Muslim Brotherhood influences. They thereby have created a collaborationist version of Salafism, where any sense of social justice is absent, and which has become the primary version now promoted in its worldwide campaign. As noted by Bernard Heykal, in Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, although al Albani had been expelled for his influence over the violent attempt to take over the Grand Mosque in 1979:

On the other hand, it was equally possible for other followers of al Albani to wholeheartedly support the regime, as happened with his neo-Ahl al-Hadithdisciples Rabi ibn Hadi Madkhali and Mohammed Aman al-Jami, who supported the Saudi invitation to American troops in 1990. They were allowed to gain control over such important institutions as the Islamic University of Medina in exchange for purging them of the Sahwist and Muslim Brotherhood critics of the regime. Whereas the “political” genealogy leads to Afghanistan and Jihadi-Salafism, the “apolitical” trend can be traced to Europe, as many foreign students who studied at institutions such as Medina's Islamic University, or other Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia, brought the Madhkali trend back to countries like France and the Netherlands.[18]

This was certainly accomplished with the cognizance of the Saudi’s paymasters, the oil Supermajors, whose very livelihood depends on the stability of the Saudi regime. These collaborationist Salafis, now known as Madkhalis and al-Jamiyyah, denounced all Muslim Brotherhood ideologues as “innovators.” Most importantly, they required obedience to the rulers, even unjust ones, as a purported religious obligation, providing the pretense that opposition to the rulers would contribute excessive difficulties (Fitnah).

The collaborationist Salafis therefore do not concern themselves with issues of international politics, claiming that Muslims are not “ready” for the larger issues, but instead need to be educated so as to reform them of their “deviant” practices.[19] This followed upon al Albani’s advice, where he said, “all Muslims agree on the need to establish an Islamic state, but differ on the method to be employed to attain that goal. [For me] only by the Muslims’ adhering to Tawheed [monotheism, according to Wahhabi prescriptions] can the causes of their dissensions be removed, so that they may march toward their objective in closed ranks.”[20]

The Salafi have therefore focused their mission on “reforming” other Muslims on minor ritual details and creedal tenets as departures, called Biddah, from what they considered “true” Islam. Thus, deprived of knowledge of the true depths of the state’s corruption or complicity in the conquest of Muslim lands and exploitation of the rest of the world by the Western powers, with the Salafi movement, the Saudi regime created a neutered version of Islam.

THE BIDDAH BRIGADE
Essentially, at the behest of American interests, the Saudis have robbed Islam of any sense of social justice, which is the message that the world is actually waiting to hear, and ensured that a politically amenable version is disseminated to other parts of the world. As explained by Joas Wagemakers, this Salafi doctrine has been propagated by an international legion of students educated at the Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia, such that it “was rapidly exported out of Arabia, so that it today constitutes an unavoidable element of Salafi Islam in many Muslim and Western countries.”[21]

Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion and according to the 2010 German domestic intelligence service annual report, Salafism is the fastest growing Islamic movement in the world.[22] What has made Salafism attractive to some is that, typically, adherence to Islam among modern Muslims is weak and uninspiring. Salafis, on the contrary, exhibit an intensity that can be misread as enthusiastic piety. What Salafism inculcates, however, is haughtiness.

And, though the Salafis reject the Madhhabs, they have essentially created their own by following the prescriptions of their three scholars, Bin Baz, Uthaymeen and Al Albani. The Salafis are easily recognizable for their insistence on certain modes of dress and behavior, which they deem to derive from “correct” interpretations of the evidence, and the fulfillment of which they see as a measure of piety. Their wives normally wear Nikab (Burqa), they insist on the beard for men, and normally wear white thobes, and keep their pant hems above their ankles. In prayer they hold their hands on their chests, and abut each others’ toes together.

Worse still, the Salafis have inherited the anthropomorphism of Ibn Taymiyyah, regarding God as “above” creation in order to “affirm” his attributes. All these minutiae are considered emblematic of their superior knowledge of Islam, and all those who do otherwise are condescended upon as “deviants.”

What the Wahhabis and Salafis tend to be universally condemned for is their lack of tact. In other words, their fanaticism, which paints a picture of Islam all too familiar in the West, the most egregious example being the Taliban. Everywhere they make their presence felt, the Wahhabis and Salafis have a tendency towards harsh criticism of other Muslims, for what they deem to be “innovations” (Biddah), and therefore have often been derisively referred to among other Muslims as the “Biddah Brigade.”

However, as the Prophet Mohammed remarked, “the only reason I have been sent is to perfect good manners [Akhlaq],”[23]and that “the best amongst you are those who have the best manners and character.”[24] Finally, the Prophet also said, “make things easy for people, and do not make them difficult for them, and give them good tidings and do not make them turn away (from Islam).”[25]

Regrettably, for the fundamentalists, theirs is a vengeful, punishing God, who lifts the status of “Believers” and humiliates the “Unbelievers,” in the next world, as well as in this one. The Prophet Muhammad said in a well-known Hadith: “No one truly believes until he wants for his brother what he wants for himself.” The leading Hanbali jurist, Ibn Rajab said: “The brotherhood referred to in this Hadith is the brotherhood of humanity.”[26] But this is the message of Islam that has been forgotten.

Like the Jews and Christians before them, Muslims have lost sight of the “Spirit of the Law.” This also was the essence of Jesus’ message. When asked by the Jewish priests of his time to explain the meaning of the Law, Jesus replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” When asked to clarify who one’s “neighbor” was, he responded with the story of the Good Samaritan, to explain that, obviously, one’s neighbor is any other human being. In other words, that our responsibility is towards all men, regardless of race or religion.

The problem is partly as the Revivalists claim, that Muslims have to return to the purity of their religion to improve their situation. But the answer is not to be found in reinterpreting Islam, or in the more accurate performance of prescribed rituals, but in rediscovering the spiritual message articulated in traditional scholarship of the Maddhabs. As the Quran advises: “Verily never will God change a condition of a people until they change what is within their souls.”[27]

[1] Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to Islamic Law. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), preface p. v
[2] Abu Daud, Aqdiya, 11
[3] Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, p. 70-71
[4] quoted from Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al Buti, Al la-Madhhabiya: Abandonin Madhhabiya the Madhhabs is the Most Dangerous Bid’ah Threatening the Islamic Shari’ah. Damascus: Sunni Publications. 2007. p. 84
[5] Little, "Did Ibn Taymiyyah Have a Screw Loose,” p. 95
[6] Ahmad ibn al-Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law.
[7] George Makdisi, "Ashari and the Ash'arites in Islamic Religious History I,” Studia Islamica, No. 17 (1962), pp. 37-80; "Islam,” Encyclopædia Britannica, (Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 01 Jan. 2013) [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/295507/Islam/69167/The-way-of-... Duncan B. MacDonald, Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903), chap. III; W. Montgomery Watt, "Ash'ariyya,” Encyclopedia of Islam, (Brill, 1999).
[8] Haytami, al-Fatawa al-hadithiyya, 280
[9] G Makdisi "The Hanbali School and Sufism" Actas IV Congresso de Estudos Arabes e Islamicos (Leiden 1971). p. 122
[10] Ibn Rajab, Dhayl (i. 415-20). Laoust, H.. "Ibn al-Dhawzi,” Encyclopedia of Islam. Brill Online, 2012
[11] Chacham Israel Joseph Benjamin II, "Eight Years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855," Hanover, Germany, 1861. p. 117.
[12] Fatawa al Hadithiyyah p. 105, Published by Maktaba Mishkaat al Islamiyyah
[13] An Introduction to Islamic Law, p. 66
[14] Federation of American Scientists [http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/wahhabi.pdf]
[15] Livingstone, David. Terrorism and the Illuminati, p. 165
[16] New York: The Humanities Press, 1966, p. 45.
[17] Stephane Lacroix, Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 64
[18] Roel Meijer, Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 20
[19] Bernard Haykel, Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 49
[20] al-Majdhub, ‘Ulema wa mufakkirun ‘araftuhum, p. 302, quoted from Global Salafism, p. 69.
[21] Heykal, Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 78
[22] AFP, "Uproar in Germany Over Salafi Drive to Hand Out Millions of Qurans,” Assyrian International News Agency, April 16, 2012.
[23] Malik, Muwatta, Book 47, Number 47.1.8
[24] Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 759
[25] Bukhari Volume 1, Book 3, Number 69
[26] Sharh al-`Arba`în al-Nawawiyyah
[27] Ar Rad 13:11

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David Livingstone | Progressive Press


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