This is the beginning of a new article series. I expect this one to have 4 or 5 installments. I will take my time writing them, as some require a little research. This series is entitled reflections and thoughts, and that is exactly how it comes off. More like a rant, admittedly, than a systematic evidence-based refutation. The reason being, I just don’t have the time to waste with these people. And the vast majority of imams and scholars I run into or ever speak to about it don’t even bother and couldn’t care less. I care a little more, or at least enough to write this much, because I went through Salafiyyah and soaked it up. I attended a university associated with Salafiyyah. And even though I lead a masjid that has been called “liberal” and “ikhwani”, many of those beckoned by Salafiyyah contact me seeking my input. It will follow me around the rest of my life I expect, and so I wanted a personalized guide to quickly refer people to. Most other critiques of Salafiyyah I’ve seen were by people who abandoned not only the Salafis but also went on to completely different schools of thought, inside or even outside of Islam. So this one may be unique in that it is written by someone who still generally reveres the creed, fiqh, and manhaj from the legacy of Imam ibn Taymiyyah (rh).

And so I pray these words bring benefit for readers.

The first installment will not have much meat to it, but simply my story and nothing more.

 

My story

Before proceeding, when I refer to Salafiyyah throughout this series, I am specifically referring to a group and not the concept of following the Quran and Sunnah based on the understanding of the pious predecessors.

As Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-Uthaymeen (rh) is known to have said, “follow salafiyyah, but not the Salafis.”

A great many scholars in the Muslim world refer to them as Jāmiyyah or Madkhaliyyah/Madākhilah. These appellations are in reference to Sh Muhammad Amaan al-Jaami (an Ethiopian scholar who taught in Medinah) and his student, the current figurehead of the Salafi Dawah, Dr Rabee ibn Haadi al-Madkhali. I don’t like those nicknames as they are pejoratives and because I do have respect for those two scholars in their general teachings, like all scholars of Islam.

I was attracted to Islam in 2001 because I saw it as the truth. I did not come to Islam because of anyone I knew or because of any warm fuzzy feeling I was chasing. But because I believed—and still believe alhamdulillah—that it was and is the absolute truth. That is what has been steering me for the religious decisions of my life. And I came to Salafiyyah for a similar reason.

Justifying everything with direct scriptural evidence and ensuring that a believer today is practicing Islam just as a believer did 1400 years ago was a breath of fresh air and made perfect sense. Becoming Salafi felt like “taking the red pill” within Islam, like accepting a new religion again. And I suppose that is one of the problems with Western Salafiyyah – you can’t gradually take it up. You have to embrace a complete set of norms all at once, or they will hound you until you do or give up. Otherwise, you are a bad influence for others.

However, in retrospect, I now realize, had I joined just about any movement in Islam, it would be justified with evidences from the Quran and Sunnah and the understanding of the early Muslims, but just a difference in pedagogy.^[1]One approach teaches with the evidence first, the other approach let’s you learn the evidence later, if you aspire to learn more. I warn against the “Salafi-Madkhali cult” not only because I see it against the “spirit of Islam” but also I fear it may become a dangerous cult in America, as it has in some countries abroad. I also believe that it truly is a cult, by the definition of the word, and it leads many Muslims to burnout and other extremes at best, apostasy at worst.

Salafiyyah in Peoria Illinois

I took shahadah in October of 2001 at the hands of Abu Usamah Ath-Thahabi, well-known Salafi daa’iyah. He ended up leaving Peoria within a couple years of my shahadah.

My introduction to Salafiyyah primarily came from a couple of converts to Islam in Peoria Illinois and an Arab mentor, Burhan. One brother, whom I’ll simply refer to as “Abuh”, probably has the biggest share in it, as he was the noisiest or the most insistent on Salafiyyah, and the most oppressive in calling to it.

The others were more integrated within the rest of the Muslim community. Abuh was the most isolated by the time I came to the scene, and he had the most drama and history with the rest.

Abuh and the elder brother each held a large grudge against Abu Usamah, as they claim he did not call to Salafiyyah during the five years he was in Peoria. They thought that with Abu Usamah there, “they were going to get their own state” as Abuh put it, because of how knowledgeable and charismatic sh Abu Usamah was. 

In 2005, Abuh and I took a road trip to Chicago to visit a Salafi masjid there on Hallstead Street and that was where I got some books and met some brothers. It was a blessed and enjoyable trip. The Creed of Imam Barbahari opened my eyes just as Kitab al-Tawheed did a year or two before—it was like another watershed moment in my understanding of Islam and orthodoxy. But in addition to that, I heard a Palestinian brother recite Surah al-Fatihah in a way that forever changed how I recite it.

Abuh and Burhan taught me about the scholars of Islam. We were four guys in Peoria—myself the 21-year-old, Burhan in his early 40’s, and the two convert men: Abuh, late 30’s with half a dozen kids and an elder in his 50’s.

By this time, I had left Knox College, with my parents’ permission, so that I could study Islam. And it was the last time I touched my beard for over ten years. I remember having breakfast in Perkins with the brothers and Abuh talked about Muslims who “start their day with a haraam”. That was enough for me. Burhan however, despite his Salafiyyah, was fairly well integrated in the Muslim community, even a board member at a primarily Indo-Pak masjid.

I was doing a lot of learning, listening and reading, spending any money I ever received on English Islamic books. I would frequently attend fajr with Burhan in different masajid. Sometimes he would give private lessons to us. This was the era of my life where my iman was highest. I bought lots of books on aqeedah and tazkiyah. I had completely voluntarily stopped listening to music. I would fast often, and pray istikhaarah nearly every day for the most mundane things. Apart from Salafi learning, I did a lot of reading in apologetics. Refutations of Christianity, but especially atheism. I made summaries of the books of Harun Yahya. Remember that guy? I briefly studied at one of those unaccredited online Islamic colleges, but I did not find it rigorous enough.

A big incident I had with Abuh took place when he loudly called another brother a kafir—not to the man’s face. I told him he cannot say that. He smiled and walked away saying that whoever doubts he’s a kafir is also a kafir. He smiled as if he was happy about it. Who was the subject? A Pakistani elder who sometimes gave khutbahs in our community and had published a couple of books on Islam. Abuh said that he said that Allah is everywhere. I remember chasing after Abuh as he went to his car and drove off. Then I e-mailed him. Here is an excerpt from the e-mail I sent him some 15 years ago:

I went back and forth with Abuh, as he would bring some quote or hadeeth and I would respond with many times more until he refused to speak to me or return the salaam to me for a few days. It was like as if he did not read or comprehend what I sent him, even though I was quoting the scholars he himself claimed to revere about the very issue we were debating. I was feeling great narrowness and I forwarded our e-mail exchange to a Salafi masjid asking them to judge between us and I never got a response.

Abuh was well-known in the Salafi communities across the US at that time. I remember one time in another city, I mentioned a little bit about our problems, and then the visiting daa’iyah immediately exclaimed, “Was is Abuh!?”. He knew. But for the sake of keeping unity between the Salafis in Peoria, eventually I just asked Abuh to “teach me” if I am wrong. We then made up. I don’t know if Abuh ever retracted, but I fear that the Sunnah of Allah has come true, as I check up on Abuh 15 years later, it does not appear that he is practicing Islam anymore. Nor any of his kids. And Allah knows best. Meanwhile, the Pakistani elder just passed away in early 2023, and his janazah well attended in Peoria. 

For the year or so in Peoria that we were deep in Salafiyyah, we considered opening our own masjid out of a church on Main Street. We also often hung out with some Salafi brothers from Bloomington-Normal, all black-American brothers. This was a common thread.

Despite my trying to come closer to Abuh, he was always testing. I remember in a gathering when he said to someone “you should marry your daughter [who was 15 at the time] to AbdulHaqq [me].” It stunned everyone present that he said that out of the blue.

Not long after this, Abuh got a sales job in tech. When he started making money, he changed. He giddily talked about how cool it was to make million-dollar deals. I was happy for him. But when he moved to the east coast, I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently he even mellowed a bit over there.

A year later, the rest of us visited his community for a Salafi conference. Dawud Adib was there with Abu Muhammad al-Maghribi and there were some telelinks with shaykhs Yahya al-Hajuri, Salih al-Suhaimi, Rabee al-Madkhali, among others. Most of the conference was about kindness in dawah, ironically.

A great blessing from the visit was when my question was put forward to shaykh Salih about money that my parents had put in treasury bonds for my college tuition. I was expecting him to say it was haram because of the interest, but to my surprise, he said to “take it all” and benefit from it. This was a jaw dropping moment at the conference, alhamdulillah, and led to untold blessings afterwards – hajj, which led to studying at Medinah, which led to my marriage and becoming an imam. After studying Islam, I’ve learned that this is in fact the mainstream view.

Eventually, Abuh moved back to central Illinois, and around the same time, my closest friend whom I’ve referred to as my mentor, moved out west for his job. I felt quite alone at that moment. I gained a new close Lebanese friend, but essentially lost the other Salafis. The elder’s wife passed away. It was, from what some said, “the most witnessed Muslim funeral ever seen in Peoria”. He then became more reclusive and standoffish. He eventually went overseas and remarried, but that ended in estrangement. Things went severely downhill for him after that. It was sad. Allah have mercy on him and forgive him. He passed away shortly after I moved to Pittsburgh.

Salafiyyah pretty much vanished from Peoria.

There was one other brother, white, a few years older than I, who accepted Islam a year after me. David (not his real name) likely came to Islam from the exact same library Quran that guided me to the faith.

I remember going to an ISNA conference in 2003. I was amazed by it because it was the most Muslims I had ever seen in my life. I loved it. But I remember spotting David there seething, because of the mixing.  

David went to Yemen to study at Damaaj but primarily stayed in San`aa to learn Arabic. I hardly heard much about him after that, except that his wife was supposedly spotted asking for money around town. And then, suspiciously coincidentally, he showed up in Peoria right when I finished in Medinah. My closer friends and I all thought the same thing. Trust no one.

When I look David up now, there are hardly any online footprints, but some vague posts about salafiyyah. 

One thing Burhan said after moving out west was that his opinion about interfaith dialogue changed. There was a center there for a false prophet, and if the Muslims didn’t attend interfaith events, reps from that center would represent Islam. Not only that, but in the wake of September 11^th, Christians had camped outside the masjid protecting it.

Interfaith dialogue was one of those “red lines” among American Salafis. But wisdom is the lost provision of the believer. And the American Salafis did not have any real strong evidence to prohibit interfaith dialogue. They all probably engaged in interfaith dialogue with their non-Muslim relatives anyway.

At this time, I was working at Target and sought counsel from my friends on what to do with my money. I was anxious to do something. I was torn between moving to Yemen to seek knowledge or getting married or moving to the stronger Salafi communities of the east coast. Abuh said, “why don’t you make hajj?” The thought surprisingly had not occurred to me, and I prayed about it and it became beautified in my heart. So I performed hajj in 2006 with a lot of members of the Salafi masjids of Newark and Germantown Philly. It was a tremendous experience, alhamdulillah. I remember those brothers very fondly, and I drove to visit them a few months later.

Some of the brothers knew I wanted to study Islam and they encouraged me to apply to study there. So I prayed istikhaarah in the Prophet’s Masjid, felt good about it, and then applied.

When I met Shaykh Tahir Wyatt there — who was in the early stages of his master’s degree, he warned me against going to Yemen and encouraged studying at Medinah. My parents were also happier that I went to Saudi Arabia and an established university, as opposed to some camp in the middle of nowhere. Damaaj would ultimately be overrun and many of its students killed in the civil war that erupted from the Arab Spring. Alhamdulillah for good counsel and istikharah. I was previously in contact with Abu Waleed al-Baltimori about making my arrangements to go to Yemen.

While in Medinah during the hajj we visited several scholars, Abdullah ibn Ateeq al-Harbi, Ibrahim al-Ruhaili, Tarheeb al-Dawsary, Ali al-Tuwaijiri, and Ubaid al-Jabiri twice. Shaykh Ubaid impressed me the most. He had a masters degree while the others were PhD professors in the University. But I remember shaking hands with Shaykh Ubaid, looking into his face, and seeing dark lines under his eyes, like the lines that some of the sahaabah had from intense crying out of fear of Allah.

And when we were in Makkah, I went to the home of Shaykh Rabee` al-Madkhali and heard him give a talk about hajj fiqh. In between every pause, he was constantly remembering Allah. I was amazed.

During the hajj trip, I had a long list of questions I hoped to get answered. When I presented them to Tahir to give to a shaykh, he looked at my twenty questions. All but two of them were about al-jarh wa al-ta`deel and innovation. The others were about basic purification. Just being honest. He answered the ones about purification for me in the car and said that it seemed that our community had its priorities misplaced. But when you are given nothing but a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

One of my motivations for studying was that I felt deep down inside, that even though Salafiyyah had the evidences, there was something wrong with how it was being packaged and manifested in America. I did not feel comfortable with just a few duaat translating a few words they chose of a few scholars for very limited topics. I felt like Islam had to be more than that. I felt like the Arab Salafis understood and lived it better than the Black American Salafis. When I read an obituary of Shaykh Abdul Azeez ibn Baz, it moved me, caring for the orphans and widows and oppressed. If this was one of the greatest scholars of Salafiyyah, and his briefest life summary included his care for others, then why don’t I hear more about that in the Western Salafi discourse? What more about Islam don’t I know about? I felt like as if Islam were a map, and Salafiyyah only allowed me to see one city on the map.

Being accepted to study in Medinah was perhaps the most life changing event that happened to me. I was relieved I would not have to be a welder anymore. And I was relieved to get away from the constricting Salafis of America.

Salafiyyah in Medinah

When I arrived in Medinah, I hung out with lots of students, not only Salafis. Without a doubt, the American and British Salafis were more suspecting than the Arab Salafis, or like one of my closer friends, a Pakistani-Saudi Salafi. Eventually I just couldn’t stand being around the American or British Salafis anymore. Their presence felt as constricting as Abuh’s presence was back in Illinois. As if any ambiguous word or move you make, even if based on evidence, will be met with suspicion and reproach because they are learning at a different pace, and it may be that I have learned something that they haven’t. I remember the first day I met some of them, I was wearing a dark green prayer cap. They didn’t talk to me but were talking about me, wondering if I was Sufi because of the color of my kufi prayer cap.

After marrying and living outside the campus and learning Arabic and going into the college of da`wah (nearly ALL salafis went to the Hadeeth college) I felt freer to learn and discover Islam on my own, without anyone else policing what I was learning. The only time I would see them would be at a dars in the Prophet’s masjid or on the streets from time to time. There were Saudi Salafis in the Dawah college, and they were my closer friends, even up until I graduated. But for them, the emphasis was the scholars of Medinah, in general, especially Shaykh Abdul-Muhsin al-`Abbaad. They did not have quite the narrow vision of “who the scholars were” that Western Salafis had.

During my time there, I rarely heard Sh Rabee` al-Madkhali mentioned. Rarely. That surprised me. I expected that he had a strong and influential word in Saudia and especially in Medinah and its university halls, since he used to supervise the college of hadeeth. Considering the influence he had among American Salafis, you would think he was the pope. And actually, it seemed like only the western students mentioned him. Otherwise, his name would only be mentioned if he visited Medinah. I still remember on one occasion, raising my hand in a class saying “Shaykh Rabee` says …” and the teacher, even a known “Salafi scholar” looked annoyed and immediately dismissed my comment. The Madkhali-Salafi movement was like a pariah among other scholars/teachers of the city, even many supposedly “Salafi scholars”.

Many of the professors whose names I dropped earlier from my ‘06 Hajj eventually became my teachers. I remember in my junior year in Medinah, trying to get closer to one of those scholars in particular because of his specialty in tafseer. I told him about the Salafi movement in America, and he flat out told me to “turn away” [أعرض] from those people and busy myself with knowledge and teaching the Muslims.

I occasionally hung out with a couple American Salafis, since they were more laid back. They frequently told me to recruit a particular brother. I don’t know why they would want me to target him except for the color of his skin. However, that brother in particular was probably the furthest removed from Salafiyyah, since his parents left Philadelphia avoiding all that.

This is one aspect of Salafiyyah that bothers me, and why it will remain prominent in many cities. Many black American converts take shahadah at my masjid but then I never hear from them again, only to find out that they have been picked up by the Salafi dawah. And of course, Salafiyyah is the dominant Islam in prisons. And then, when others see that there are few if any black Americans in my masjid, we are accused of racism and being a “cultural center”. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I digress.

I strongly considered doing a masters in Medinah in tafseer studies. I was, alhamdulillah, one of the better performing/outstanding students in my class. Although some others, especially an Egyptian and a Yemeni were much faster thinkers than I was. But we all benefited from each other and thought the same way. I got the couple required letters of recommendation and studied al-Itqaan by al-Suyuti, but my istikhaarah told me not to continue beyond that.

Before continuing with my story, I just want to pause to say O ALLAH THANK YOU SO MUCH for the opportunity to study in Medinah. My past experiences, Medinah or elsewhere, I rarely think about. I am usually engrossed in the present: my family at home or my masjid community in Pittsburgh. And I wish I kept more connections with Medinah, but the brothers did create a whatsapp group alhamdulillah.

By this time, I had little to say or think about Salafiyyah. I remember meeting a long-time Salafi figure from Philly in his home in Medinah, and him telling me, “The Salafis are more harmful than them [the Sufis].” And him saying, “They keep telling me I need to make a bayan. What they don’t understand is I don’t care.” He had moved on.

When you really taste the sweetness of knowledge, you have no choice but to move on. And so had I.

After Medinah

I returned home to Peoria in July 2013 after finishing my bachelors from Medinah. I taught at the local Islamic school for a semester, and then went to Malaysia for my masters in August 2014. In Malaysia, Salafiyyah was practically unheard of. For the two years I was there, the focus was on fiqh and usul al-fiqh. During my research of course, I would go into the old books like al-Mughni and al-Muhalla along with the writings of contemporary scholars like ibn al-Uthaymeen and al-Dardeer. Usul al-fiqh was a different beast where I spent a lot of time researching concepts like istihsan, qiyaas, and amal ahl-medinah and maqasid al-sharia and the supposed “disputed evidences”. Much of that research was from ibn Taymiyyah, and other medieval and contemporary scholars around the world. I had always heard the phrase “the spirit of Islam” and while I had been suspect to it, I learned to appreciate it better when studying maqasid and qawaa’id.

When I finished in Malaysia in 2016, I returned to Peoria. My wife was employed as a Quran teacher in St Louis while a position with CAIR-Missouri called “Islamic Education Director” opened up. After praying istikhaarah and applying, I accepted their offer and I worked with them for three months.

CAIR is vilified among western Salafis for being an “Ikhwani organization” that mixes with politicians and organizes protests—more about those points to come inshaAllah. I then briefly led the “Islamic Information Center” of St Louis for a couple of uneventful months and then drove for Uber. I taught a class at the Islamic school and gradually increased my hours there. Meanwhile, I sent a letter to a masjid that just gave up their imam, offering my services, and I was accepted by them alhamdulillah.

The St Louis community is a fascinating community and a favorite of mine in America, despite my limited sampling and exposure. Although I am not certain, I heard there were two Bosnian Salafi masjids in St Louis, an intercity Salafi Masjid, and one Arab Salafi masjid in the west suburbs near where I lived. I had been to the suburban masjid a couple of times. The story goes that they split off from St Louis’ first and largest center over ideological differences in curriculum management. When I went there, I was reunited with an Salafi brother from Bloomington-Normal, and we would catch up.

As a member of the imam’s council, I never saw any of the Salafi imams.

I lived where I lived and worked where I worked and was rarely in need of going elsewhere. Having two jobs (teaching and imam’ing) and three children, I had little time to befriend people. One of my closer friends in St Louis were more akin to the Arab Salafi strand. Because of the history of the community there was a lot more maturity in the community there. The large mainstream masjid’s first imam was appointed by Abdul Azeez ibn Baaz. They also had a good ongoing communication with a Salafi scholar of Egyptian background, Sh Ibrahim Zidan who would occasionally visit and give a set of lessons between the mainstream masjid and the Arab Salafi masjid. He would actually go to both, and arbitrate in any disputes.

But in August of 2019, I traded three jobs for one by accepting the Imam position of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, alhamdulillah. I have had near zero interactions with Salafis here, although I have tried to reach out to their known masjid and leadership on various occasions, to no success. The only other brushes I’ve had were those that prompted me to write this article. One was a stranger’s plea for me to return to Salafiyyah. Additionally, several converts have told me that their faith was shaken by those enticing them to Salafiyyah. So they were seeking clarity.

When I reflect back on those years, it is hard to decide whether my time with the Salafis was a “mistake” or not. I don’t believe it was, but I made mistakes. I tried hard to be kind to my parents, but they interpreted my differences as harshness. I wish I knew that some of the things that I differed with them about were disputed among scholars and that I could have followed more flexible scholars for the sake of pleasing my parents. I wish I knew then what I know now.

 

Who makes up most Salafi adherents in America?

 

Most deviant movements can only grow with appeals to converts. I learned this when reading through history. Movements that began far away from “central authority”. That’s not always a bad thing. After all, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was not commissioned in the middle of Rome or Damascus. But when you are already within a certain tradition, it is a red flag when the make-up is predominantly converts. There is no example of [وشهد شاهد من أهلها], of a scholar from outside embracing and championing the new ideology. No Umar ibn al-Khattaab. No Abdullah ibn Salaam. 

The other adherents are often people who did not grow up in a household of Islamic practice. They go from non-practicing to this extremist understanding. They’ve never lived a “happy medium”. I’m sure if they did, they would not leave it for a cult. And so it is not uncommon to find large Salafi groups from backgrounds where Islam was dispossessed from its people, like those of Central Asia and Southern Europe.

They are the “born again” of the Muslim world.

And for that reason, it’s also extremely rare that it lasts more than a generation.

The movement remains in America for two main reasons: one obvious and one hidden. The obvious reason is the great presence of converts and “born agains”—people who do not have a firm grounding and experience of the faith. And converts attract converts, and America has a lot of them, alhamdulillah. So it works as a gathering place, almost like a “third space” for converts who don’t feel like they fit in at the regular masjid. But I won’t mince words. Salafiyyah does not attract just any and all converts, but specifically black American converts. 

The movement captures the dissatisfaction that new Muslims had from jahiliyyah – what may have propelled them to Islam – and milks that further by sowing a new dissatisfaction to escape from: the regular ethnic immigrant Muslims. Converts want Islam and they find cultural Muslims with a diluted religion, ignorant, stuck in their ways, racist, maybe arrogant, only wanting the dunya, yet “those deviant hypocrites” are the ones running the mainstream “ikhwani” masjid!

However, the one who mixes with the people and is patient with their harms is better than the one who doesn’t. There is still a lot of good in the Muslim community, once you meet more people and eventually find those of agreeable nature.

It seizes a lot of the same momentum that built the Nation of Islam, using it within Islam. And so most Salafis in America are black-American converts. 

And while Salafiyyah has surges here and there, it is mostly waning. A lot of their recruitment base, the black American Muslims, are now realizing that Salafiyyah is not the only predominantly black American community in America. Some even lean towards Sufism. 

The other hidden reason is the support their leaders and books received from government agencies. This may be unknown by them directly. But it may be, for example, through a generous donor whose reality is unknown to the Salafis, but known to the government. But it is so consistent that it has become obvious to spectators. Dr Yasir Qadhi’s experience with them for example, revealed that they were given great positions with a certain intention from the government, although things obviously did not pan out the way they intended.

 

Pluses and minuses of the Salafi movement, and the move to stifle them

 

But before going on, there are some positives of the movement, and these are positives that only a movement like Salafiyyah, with respected leadership can bring about:

• Attention to aqeedah, and the aqeedah of the Salaf, as opposed to kalam or general ignorance of aqeedah.
  • The caveat though is too much attention to aqeedah. To the point of testing and even excommunicating those who give no such attention but simply have the general faith of the hadeeth of Jibril.
  • No doubt the terminology of kalam has proliferated the turath in ways that complicate what was more readable. I remember reading how Sayyid al-Tantawi liked to occasionally read from Abul-Hasan al-Shaybani because he wrote at a time devoid of such complications.
  • I have a tolerable respect for the kalam aqeedah schools, and their intentions are good. But I view their schools like I view monasticism:

وَرَهْبَانِيَّةً ابْتَدَعُوهَا مَا كَتَبْنَاهَا عَلَيْهِمْ إِلَّا ابْتِغَاءَ رِضْوَانِ اللَّهِ فَمَا رَعَوْهَا حَقَّ رِعَايَتِهَا فَآتَيْنَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مِنْهُمْ أَجْرَهُمْ وَكَثِيرٌ مِنْهُمْ فَاسِقُونَ [57:27]

“But the Monasticism which they invented for themselves, We did not prescribe for them, but (they sought it) only to please Allah therewith, but that they did not observe it with the right observance. So We gave those among them who believed, their reward, but many of them are defiant.”

• Wara` abstaining from many doubtful things, taking the more conservative opinion when there are differences, in spite of the hardships involved. This should inspire others, but unfortunately, some Muslims have mocked it, which is very disturbing. For example, with respect to beards, niqab, and restricting halal entertainment.
  • Of course, no one can take the tougher stance on everything. Salafis are notorious for getting food from just about anywhere, including products with pork gelatin, even ignoring fatawa from majority of Saudi scholars and Saudi fiqh bodies.
• Reviving many forgotten sunan and neglected obligations, especially those related to personal public appearance as well as Islamifying our homes
• Respect for scholars of Islam
  • Big caveats there, as will follow, but at least the concept, and put into practice with a few, albeit to an extreme degree, as we’ll see.
• Reviving polygamy and the marriage of divorcees. Major major props. Of course, divorce may be a bit more common among them and marital problems in general.
• Having an easy and reliable source of arbitration – scholars overseas. While many mainstream Muslim community members may seek a scholar to arbitrate, but if one is not happy, he wants to go to another instead, never satisfied, or even calling and emailing scholars all over the country to find vindication.
• Strong sense of leadership based on Islamic knowledge, not unreliable board positions of who is richer but more ignorant. It is amazing how the Salafi communities do not refer to their board members, or even their imams, as their leaders, but refer strictly to the scholars abroad as their leadership. This humility is amazing, and the link between the three entities is very admirable: imams, board, and third party scholars who have nothing to gain or lose. And if there is a great confusion in the Muslim community that requires strong consistent continuous leadership, the Salafis may be better poised to weather out the storm than other communities where, if the imam differs with the board, and they refuse to seek arbitration, it will lead to an unemployed imam and a community guided by the woefully ignorant.
  • The caveat of course is that they have put themselves into a box like Imam al-Shafi`I described, that taqleed is only a matter of darurah, like eating dead meat. But they make it an obligation with the scholars abroad.
  • The scholars abroad are also not very aware of our circumstances. Ideally, masajid here should take national Islamic organizations as their sources of arbitration and ultimate leadership.
• Encouraging knowledge and da`wah.
  • To an extant, as I’ve already hinted at. They can talk about the greatness of knowledge and dawah until their faces turn blue, but then when people actually pursue knowledge and give dawah, if they aren’t just translating, they’ll castigate them.
• Love for the Sunnah, hadeeth, truth and evidence
• Holding each other to account over what is said or written, therefore having good etiquette with Allah and the Messenger ﷺ and the deen in this way, and promoting a culture of careful speech. This is something I feel – or hope I learned – from Salafiyyah. But as a natural introvert, it comes easy.

I want to point their positives out, as no movement goes to extreme in some things except due to the neglect of others in that thing. So those points, as they are, I believe are cultural aspects that other communities could benefit from. And that stems from a love of Sunnah, truth and scholarship, hopefully.

And all this is not to say that mainstream communities are so much better in every way and balanced. They have their flaws. But like all things in this era, [وفيه دخن].

And one after another, scholars have debated how to deal with the Madkhali movement. Some decided to ignore them, but this allowed them to spread. Others found that the best way to garner their attention and win them over was in fact to give them great and powerful evidence-based refutations. I wish I had the ability and time to do so, but I am going to suffice with something modest that will hopefully inspire the more apt. 

EDIT: since publishing these articles, many brothers who have been following my blog have reached out to me and told me about their own journeys through Salafiyah until madhabism. Alhamdulillah. 

 

What is to come… 

 

What then follows, in the next two or three articles of this series, is a detail of my own personal contentions with Salafiyyah – apart from what I mentioned above. And again, by Salafiyyah, I am referring specifically to the group who follow a particular cohort of scholars, and the culture they’ve created here in America. This culture has proliferated online and has had devastating manifestations on the communal level. Allahu musta`an.

The contentions will cover their methodologies, specifically with “the scholars” and their words, refutation culture and tabdee`, political involvement, and their general pedagogy and isolationism. I may only selectively refer to issues of aqeedah, tawassul, istighaathah, or sifaat.