This is an answer I wrote to the following question: “Has Rasul-Allah Called Himself Salafi?”

All praise be to Allah, and may His blessings and peace be on the final messenger, Muhammad,

Firstly, there is a difference between salaf (predecessor/forbear) and salafi/salafiyy. The long vowel “yâ’” at the end is a masculine suffixation (the feminine of which is “iyyah”) to form an adjective of the first indicating a nisbah (relation). Therefore, if the Prophet r and the Companions are salaf for us, then for someone to call himself salafi (which I don’t recommend as I explain below), would simply mean that he follows the path of the predecessors, of which the first is the Prophet r.

The concept itself is based on uncontestable facts, including the completeness of the guidance left for us by the Prophet  and the lack of need, and the prohibition, of alteration thereof by adding or deleting. Allah said,

” الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِي وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ دِينًا.”

“This day I have perfected your religion for you; completed my favor upon you; and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.” [Al-Mā’idah 5:3]

Al-Bukhari & Muslim Reported from ‘Aisha that the Prophet  said,

“مَنْ أَحْدَثَ فِي أَمْرِنَا هَذَا مَا لَيْسَ مِنْهُ فَهُوَ رَدٌّ.”

“Whosoever invents in our affair something not of it, then it shall certainly be rejected.”

The other fact is the superiority of the earlier generations:

Al-Bukhari reported from Abdullah ibn Masaood that the Prophet  said,

“خَيْرُ النَّاسِ قَرْنِي، ثُمَّ الَّذِينَ يَلُونَهُمْ، ثُمَّ الَّذِينَ يَلُونَهُمْ، ثُمَّ يَجِيءُ أَقْوَامٌ تَسْبِقُ شَهَادَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ يَمِينَهُ، وَيَمِينُهُ شَهَادَتَهُ.”

“The best people are my generation, and then those who will follow them, and then those who will follow. Then there will come a people whose witness will precede their oaths, and their oaths precede their witness.”

Islam was not a theory transmitted to us by the ancients, but a complete way of life that was in fact lived and enacted by the earlier generations of Muslims, who should serve for us as beacons on the path to Allah’s pleasure.

Secondly, to distinguish oneself from the deviant sects is not blameworthy. We are all called Ahl al-Sunnah. This is a name crafted by the companions and their followers, because they wanted to distinguish themselves from those who took innovated and deviant paths. However, this name, unlike others, takes its authority from those who first coined it.

Thirdly, one who claims to be Salafi may or may not be true to that claim, and the same applies to one who claims to be Sunni or even Muslim. Some of the claimers may be devastating to the cause of “salafism” (inviting people to the way of the first community) by their excessive literalism, skewed priorities, misgivings, rigidity and offensive conduct. As I indicate below, I don’t endorse the use of the term as a title for an individual or a group, but it could be used to denote the concept of favoring the ways of the salaf.

Fourthly, many times the difference between the salaf (forbears) and the khalaf (followers) is not one of contradiction, but natural progression. For example, the use of certain terminologies or classifications or development of certain sciences, etc., all that is not a departure from the principles and ways of the salaf. Also, proper application of rulings to different realities with due consideration of the variables, is not a departure from their ways either. However, when there is a recognizable departure from their ways, that should be pointed out, and the verifying scholars should always call the people to returning to the way of the salaf (forbears), because it is the lighthouse, anchorage, and reference point for every generation of Muslims to calibrate their beliefs and practices against.

Fifthly, the salaf disagreed over many issues. Their disagreements were not limited to the practical rulings of fiqh either. However, their approach to the deen had certain characteristics that we should all strive to learn and implement to the best of our understanding and ability. There are three core areas where we can learn a lot from the first community: ‘Aqidah (creed), ‘Amal (actions), and Suluk (spirituality or taṣawwuf).

• In matters of creed, we must establish our beliefs as conveyed in the revelation (the supreme teller of the Truth), within the linguistic conventions and intellectual framework of the first audience, for they were meant to have the purest understanding of these beliefs – and they did. We can’t infer something about the unseen (ghayb), particularly God, on the basis of our empirical experience of the seen (shahadah). There is nothing like Him. Some of the most distinguished philosophers, like Kant, also recognize the mind’s incapacity to apprehend metaphysical realities through innatist independent inquiry. We believe it is capable (by being equipped by God) of realizing His existence and some of His essential attributes, but completely dependent on the revelation for a more detailed and robust recognition of Him (exalted is He) and the unseen in general. After priming our understanding with His transcendence and incomparability, we allow the revelation to form our conception of God, unimpeded by the objections of abstract reasoning, which has no place in metaphysics. Conceding to the philosophers will make us inconsistent or drag us all the way to a belief in the apophatic god of negative theology, a god of which nothing can be predicated, a god that has been effectively silenced, and that is not only unperceivable by the mind, but also unapproachable by the heart.

• In practice (fiqh), they favored the Sunnah over opinion, regardless of their schools, and privileged the understanding of the Companions. This prompted them to be vigilant about what they attribute to the Prophet and Companions and would ascertain its genuineness first. They were simple and not mutakallif (hyper-technical). They rejected zealotry and encouraged free discourse. This does not mean that everyone of us will be a mujtahid directly deducing rulings from the Quran and Sunnah or that we will do away with our greatest intellectual wonders, the four madhâhib, but we will have a reasoned following of them, allowing the qualified scholars of every madhhab to exercise ijtihad to ensure alignment with the Sunnah and adaptability to current realities. Also, we must allow the public to do tanaqqul (transfer) between the mujtahid imams when warranted, either because of a conviction (since the public are not all of the same degree and some of them may even be a few steps away from ijtihad) or a hardship that made the position of another mujtahid suit them more or other reasons that I address in this article https://www.drhatemalhaj.com/…/can-we-mix-between-the…/. The greatest followers of the imams such as Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn al-Hassan, Abu Haneefa’s greatest students (may Allah bestow mercy on all of them), frequently chose positions different from the imam, because they took heed of his emphatic advice to seek the truth in the revelation. While the agreement of the four imams should have an enormous weight, we can’t limit the truth to it, as I discuss in this article https://www.drhatemalhaj.com/…/can-there-be-truth…/. Aside from that, encouraging the students of knowledge to be primarily trained in one of the four madhâhib is what the vast majority of scholars advise, and protecting the place of the four madhâhib in the collective conscience of the ummah should be a priority for every lover of the way of the salaf.

• In suluk (spirituality/ tazkiyyah/ taṣawwuf), our emulation of the first community will ensure our adherence to the sunnah and rejection of bid’ah (innovation) in matters of the deen, particularly spirituality, both in conceptions and practices. While we benefit from the mentorship of the mashayekh and we may try their anecdotal advice, we ascribe no value to any worship, modality, time, place, number of repetitions except that which we learn from the only infallible medium between us and God: the Messenger of Allah (pbuh). The way of the Prophet  and his companions in purifying the soul was the most perfect way. They subsisted by Allah, for Allah, with Allah. They favored clarity over mysticism and symbolism. They were always sober, even during their most intense spiritual experiences, and that is because of their establishment (tamakkun) in their maqâmât (spiritual stations). They were not nihilistic determinists, but they exceled in engaging the causes while having perfect reliance on Allah. They resisted qadar by qadar. They were monks during the night and knights during the day. They never created dichotomous contradictions or any tension between the text of revelation or sharia on one side and the realizations of the heart or haqiqah on the other. They were deepest in knowledge, purest at heart, and least pretentious; they were not ceremonial or stuck to formalities, but most devoted to the Creator and kindest to the creation. The greatest of the salikeen (travelers on the path to God), such as Ibrahim ibn al-Adham, Ma’ruf al-Karkhi, Sari as-Saqati, Abi Sulayman ad-Darani, al-Junayd, Abdul Qadir Jilani, and many others followed the first community on this path, which is steep, but clear and balanced, and to which no one has exclusive keys.

Finally, the preferred position is that we don’t call ourselves Salafis as a title of a group or individual, but we should follow the ways of the salaf (predecessors). This is more conducive to unity and farther removed from partisanship, and more inviting to the way of the righteous predecessors. This is because one is likely to induce feelings of partisanship in others if he calls himself or his group some particular title, which should, in fact, be claimed by all Muslims, for all Muslims should be Salafi in the sense of following our spiritual forbears. Salafism is bigger than being a title for a group. Once we make it such, the concept itself will bear the faults of that group instead of permeating through the body of this goodly ummah like oil in olives and water in roses.

Inviting people to the ways of the first community should be a priority for any da‘ee because, as Imam Malik (may Allah bestow mercy on him) said, “The latter generations of this Ummah will not be rectified except by that which rectified its first generation.”

Allah knows best.

وصلى الله على محمد والحمد لله رب العالمين