The Humble I

Keen readers of the blog might realise that the last time I addressed the issue of Salafism and orthodoxy was when this blog first started, back in 2012. I haven’t returned to the subject till now. The reason for that is straightforward. This is a day and age, and it’s probably been like this for a considerably long time, that doesn’t respond well to correction. In this age of religious uproar, where souls are weak and arguments are more charged with ego or partisanship (tahazzub, hizbiyyah) than ever before, correctives seldom work. It’s an age when we find it incredibly difficult or agonising to really be open-minded to ideas outside of our own group-think or bubble. Trying to uproot erroneous notions all too often makes things worse nowadays. Egos get riled up, people take it personally, and positions usually become further entrenched. One hadith informs us that: ‘You must command good and forbid evil, until you see greed being obeyed, desires being followed, worldliness being preferred and every person being impressed with his own opinion.’28 So it’s a road we should seldom walk down; and when we do, we should do so reluctantly, wisely and warily.

Those who have yet to read Part One of the discussion are urged to do so first (it may be read here). It sets the context for this final part. The centrepiece of that first discussion were these words of Ibn Taymiyyah, when speaking about the heterodox, innovated sects: ‘The hallmark of these sects is their splitting from the Book, the Sunnah and the scholarly consensus (ijma‘). But whoever speaks according to the Book, the Sunnah and the scholarly consensus is from ahl al-sunnah wa’l-jama‘ah.’29

These words of his were also central to the overall discussion: ‘Ijma‘ is the third fundamental which is relied upon in affairs of knowledge and faith. With these three fundamentals they weigh-up all that people say or do in terms of religion, be it inwardly or outwardly.’30

Lastly, this Taymiyyan statement is worth reiterating: ‘This is why the scholars of Islam concur upon declaring as an innovator one who contravenes the likes of these usul, contrary to someone who differs in issues of ijtihad.’31

Having covered three sections in the first part of the blog, and mostly speaking of Salafism in the abstract rather than discussing specific salafi individuals or groups, here are the concluding four sections:

IV

26 – So what is true Salafism? By as early as the fourth Islamic century, we find some scholars using the salafi label to describe certain scholars. So we see the historian Ibn Hayyan say about Isma‘il b. Hammad, the grandson of Imam Abu Hanifah: ‘They said that Isma‘il b. Hammad b. Abu Hanifah was a true salafi.’32 Or we see al-Dhahabi write in his biographical notice on Ibn Hubayrah: ‘He was versed in the [Hanbali] madhhab, Arabic, prosody, was salafi, athari.’33 Of al-Akhna’i, al-Safadi said: ‘He was a lover of reports, salafi in approach.’34 Anyone prepared to do the academic spadework will discover that while such usage of the label ‘salafi’, both pre and post Ibn Taymiyyah, does make appearances in the medieval tabaqat-biographical literature, it does so infrequently.

27 – Another ‘as-a-matter-of-fact’ point about the salafi tag is that historically, prior to about the mid-1970s, its use was very specific. Dipping into the tabaqat works again, and we come across al-Dhahabi saying about Imam Ibn al-Salah: ‘He possessed remarkable majesty, solemnity, gravity, eloquence and beneficial knowledge. He was firm in faith, wholly salafi, of correct creed … He believed in Allah and what came from Allah, in terms of His names and attributes.’35 And of Abu’l-Bayan Naba b. Muhammad b. Mahfuz, al-Dhahabi says: ‘Shaykh Abu’l-Bayan, may Allah be pleased with him; shaykh of the Bayaniyyah [sufi] tariqah. He was of eminent status, a scholar who acted on his knowledge, a renunciant (zahid), devout, an expert of the [Arabic] language, a jurist of the Shafi‘i school, salafi in creed, and a caller to the Sunnah.’36 And in al-Safadi’s description of Abu Ishaq al-Kinani: ‘He was righteous, benevolent, abundant in the dhikr of Allah, salafi in creed (salafi al-mu‘taqad).’37 And Ibn Hajr on Muhammad b al-Qasim al-Misri: ‘He was the chief of the Malikis in Egypt, and one who had best memorised the madhhab among them. Versed in history, highly cultured, very religious, deeply devout … He was salafi in creed.’38

28 – The above quotes show how the salafi epithet was applied to scholars who, after the rise of the Ash‘ari and Maturidi theological schools, continued to stick to what they believed was the ijma‘ of the salaf in terms of creed (‘aqidah). Thus the designation, salafi mu‘taqad – ‘salafi in creed.’ Such purist scholars (and it was scholars given this tag, not laymen) were marked by two traits: [i] rejecting the rationalising methods (or most of it) of kalam theologians and, [ii] rejecting figurative interpretation (ta’wil) with regards to the divine attributes (sifat). For such salafi scholars, both these matters were fiercely repudiated by the ijma‘ of the salaf, as per reports related from them.39 Being salafi didn’t mean rejection of following a fiqh school, or being anti-madhhab or anti-taqlid, or kicking the whole of sufism (tasawwuf) into the long grass; as the above quotations clearly demonstrate. This was never the stamp of authenticity of true Salafism, but it would become the stock in trade of the false one.

29 – The past Sunni imams who did allow figurative interpretations (ta’wil) in the divine attributes did so, not because they believed it was lawful to reject an ijma‘, especially of the salaf, but because they didn’t believe there was an ijma‘. Typifying this stance is Imam al-Nawawi, who wrote: ‘They disagreed about the verses and reports to do with the divine attributes, should they be discussed by way of figurative interpretation or not? Some said that they should be, as befits them. This is the more well-known of the two views of the kalam theologians. Others said they should not be figuratively interpreted. Instead, one withholds from speaking about their meanings and entrusts knowledge of them to Allah, exalted is He, along with believing in Allah’s transcendence; exalted is He … And this was the path of the salaf, or [rather] the majority of them …’40 A similar reason is given for using kalam, as I’ve discussed in my article about Hanbalis & kalam.

30 – Given the above, we may say that all religious issues can fit into one of three categories:. Either it is one about which there is an undisputed ijma‘ (be it explicitly or tacitly stated); or it is an ijtihadi one where scholars agree to differ; or it’s one where consensus is claimed by one group of scholars, but disputed by another group: that is, there is no ijma‘ about the ijma‘. In the latter case, one does their best to do what is right, as per Allah’s statement: Fear Allah as best as you can. [Q.64:16] The agreed upon (mujma‘ ‘alayhi) issues, be they beliefs or actions, form the usul; and differing from them is forbidden and is considered sectarian splitting; the divider between ahl al-sunnah and ahl al-bid‘ah. Those differed over (mukhtalif fihi) issues form the furu‘ wherein the differences are valid and celebrated, and cannot be censured.

31 – So why does this all matter? Without being crystal clear in terms of what true Salafism was in the past, one is in real jeopardy of unwittingly following the false Salafism of the present. The stakes are that high! If, under the name of Salafism, or while claiming to be salafi, divisions are occurring over ijtihadi issues, or all of sufism – lock, stock and barrel – is being rejected as deviant, or following a madhhab is being seen as a sign of misguidance, these are perhaps tell tale signs that false Salafism is what is being followed. The way to make the necessary u-turn, after making tawbah, is by making ijma‘ the cornerstone, and by giving the mujma‘ ‘alayhi and mukhtalif fihi issues their due roles and rights. As for expanding the salafi tag beyond issues of ijma‘ (which are usually, but not exclusively, creedal), then this novel departure from what had been the norm for close to a millennium is what is discuss in the next section.

V

32 – Ibn Kathir stated of the great Shafi‘i scholar, Ibn Surayj, that ‘he was upon the school of the salaf (wa kana ‘ala madhhab al-salaf).’41 And al-Dhahabi said about al-Zabidi: kana hanafiyyan salafiyyan – ‘He was a salafi Hanafi.’42 To be clear and to press home this vital point: Being salafi in the classical sense of the label had nothing at all to do with fiqh or suluk/tasawwuf. Instead, it had everything to do with a purist, more fideist creed: one which early Hanbalis are usually associated with. This is how true Salafism was always understood until its radical reconstruction around the mid-twentieth century.

33 – In the early twentieth century, the salafi concept made an innovative leap from being the madhhab of the salaf in creed; that is, the ‘aqidah that the salaf had a general consensus upon, to becoming something much broader: Salafism (salafiyyah). Salafism, in the 1920s, was still work in progress. Its ideologisation was still growing. By the 1970s; and if not, the early 80s, Salafism would settle on being the all-encompassing thing that it is today. Today’s Salafism isn’t just about creed. It now encompasses fiqh issues, political stances and outlooks, and even the way you dress or pray. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to state that as contemporary Salafism became more and more encompassing, it became more and more intolerant too. It is now the norm to be divested of one’s salafi-ness, oftentimes at the drop of a hat. And one doesn’t have to have violated an ijma‘ for one’s salafi-ness to be questioned. It nearly always happens on matters of bonafide ijtihad. This isn’t a straw man depiction of today’s Salafism. It’s how it actually is.

34 – This jump from employing the word salafi as an adjective (salafi mu‘taqad) to using it as a substantive or as an abstract noun (salafiyyah/Salafism) seems to have been driven, in significant part, with Muslim reformers pushing back, not just against Western colonialism in the latter part of the nineteenth or the first half of the twentieth century, but against the perceived fossilisation of the ‘late Sunni tradition’ too.43 By the 1980s, the idea of Salafism was well enough constructed for one of the most celebrated scholars and advocates of the late Sunni tradition (‘Traditional Islam’), Sa‘id Ramadan al-Buti, to write his widely read anti-salafi tract, Salafiyyah – ‘Salafism’ (1988).

35 – While al-Albani is credited as the scholar who most popularised this new, all-inclusive idea of Salafism, he was not the first to invent it. That distinction, as the historical evidence seems to suggest, goes to the Egyptian scholar-cum-activist and professor of philosophy, Mustafa Hilmi. Against the backdrop of the spread of Western secular thought throughout the Islamic world, and the rise of Islamic modernism as well as a more politicised reading of Islam as the two counters to it, Hilmi took the identifiable madhhab of the salaf and invested it with a broader, more roomy scope to arrive at Salafism. Trained in the secular humanities, and fully devoted to the creed of the salaf, Hilmi co-opted some of the jargon of the humanities to express this totalising vision of Salafism in his book, Qawa‘id al-Manhaj al-Salafi – ‘Rules of the Salafi Methodology.’ (1976) and his next outing, al-Salafiyyah Bayna al-‘Aqidah al-Islamiyyah wa’l-Falsafah al-Gharbiyyah – ‘Salafism: Between Islamic Creed and Western Philosophy’ (1983).

36 – The designation manhaj (method, methodology) was already something of a buzzword in Western academic circles in 1960s Egypt. To speak of method was to speak of intellectual rigour and scholarly exactitude in a scientific idiom. The popularity of the term manhaj would soon extend beyond academic circles to include activists in the field of political Islam (Islamism, as it is now known); largely through the writings of Sayyid Qutb. Hilmi, inspired by Qutb’s usage of the term, constructed Salafism to represent an all-encompassing religious idea, or rather ideology. The jewel in the crown of his reframing of Salafism was the idea of manhaj al-salaf. Hilmi himself said in defining it: ‘Salafism became an all-inclusive technical term in designating the way of the salaf in grasping and applying Islam.’44

37 – Although the phrase ‘manhaj of the salaf’ was used before Hilmi (al-Albani used it occasionally around the 1950s, and Hamid al-Fiqi utilised it earlier still, in the late 1920s), it appears that there is no concrete evidence to suggest it was used as an all-inclusive concept till Hilmi employed it as such. Once he did, and once his Qawa‘id al-Manhaj gained wider reception (it earned him the King Faysal International Prize in Islamic studies, in 1985), the concept of being salafi would never be quite the same again. If salafi ‘aqidah is what divided salafis from other Muslims, then salafi manhaj would be significantly responsible for setting apart salafis from other salafis. Intra-salafi bickering and splitting and bigotry would soon become proverbial, and a perpetual air of enmity, mistrust and wariness between rival salafi factions would gradually be seen as business as usual.

VI

38 – For twentieth century salafi reformers, salafi manhaj would have an edge over the original notion of madhhab al-salaf or salafi mu‘taqad. Talk of manhaj allowed a level of flexibility (and some would argue innovation) that madhhab or ‘aqidah did not. One could now talk about an alleged salafi manhaj in fiqh, but not really a salafi madhhab. This permitted such reformers to defend their anti-madhhab and non-madhhab approach to Islamic jurisprudence – with all the religious anarchy, DIY fatwas and fitnah this would unleash. When placed in the deftly critical hands of someone like al-Albani, manhaj could be wielded to maximum effect. Other senior salafi scholars, like Ibn Baz, said there was no distinction between manhaj and ‘aqidah; that they are, in fact, synonymous.45

39 – Al-Albani would use manhaj to distinguish ‘purist’ salafis from half-baked or dubious ones. He categorised scholars and activists who believed in the salafi creed, but who were not ‘pure’ across the board, as being salafi in ‘aqidah, but not in manhaj. What did that actually mean? Were such people now outside of the saved-sect? Had such people violated an established ijma‘? Had their salafi-ness now been nullified? This wasn’t clear then, and is still unclear even today. What is quite clear is that as soon as someone like al-Albani doubted someone’s manhaj, such people were almost invariable treated by the salafi community as if they were deviant innovators. Weighing affairs with ijma‘ theology now took a back seat to weighing issues according to this newly invented manhaj. If not ijma‘, then by what golden standard was it decided whether someone was ‘off the manhaj’ or not? If no recorded ijma‘ had been contravened, was rebuking, censuring or questioning peoples’ orthodoxy in matters of ijtihad the way of the salaf? Can this be true Salafism? Among salafis, anarchy and ambiguity reign in this quarter too.

40 – From the 1980s, being a ‘pure’ salafi was becoming an uphill task. Not only did creed have to be correct, but fiqh ideas, epistemology, political outlooks and, over time, dress code too, had to pass the manhaj check list. All this can be seen in the multi-volume compilation (covering over five and a half thousand pages) of Shaykh al-Albani’s manhaj question and answers: Jami‘ Turath al-‘Allamah al-Albani fi’l-Manhaj wa’l-Ahdath al-Kubra (2011). It is one of Salafism’s biggest ironies, then, that Hilmi’s own salafi-ness was decided on the issue of manhaj. In the Jami‘, we see al-Albani querying about Hilmi in one such Q&A session: ‘Is he salafi? … Mustafa Hilmi a salafi? … What is the proof of his Salafism?’46 For most purist salafis in the know, that pretty much sealed Hilmi’s fate. Even if Hilmi did ascribe to the salafi ‘aqidah, his commitment to philosophical ideas and concepts would have excluded him from being a purist salafi in manhaj; as per the growing checklist.

41 – Let’s visit a few more examples of manhaj’s ability to include and exclude, as deployed by al-Albani. In the Jami‘, we find one reason to suspect a person’s salafi-ness is being loyal to an Islamic party, like the Muslim Brotherhood (al-ikhwan al-muslimun): this constituted hizbiyyah, ‘factional partisanship’. Such a person might be salafi in some matters, while ikhwani in other matters; and hence their Salafism was seriously tainted at best.47 Being too political; that is, putting political activism over gaining sound knowledge and nurturing oneself and others on such knowledge (something that al-Albani called the manhaj of tasfiyah and tarbiyah) was deviation from the manhaj too.48 It was, however, allowed to cooperate with such groups and parties, with the condition that it be on the basis of the Book, Sunnah and manhaj of the salaf.49

42 – These manhaj markers aren’t without their merits or their scriptural basis. In truth, they had good scriptural support. The problem was that they were too generic, lacking shari‘ah nuances. For what could be said, in the case of Islamic parties, of some learned person with salafi ‘aqidah, who felt it was their duty to focus on political activism, with a view to steering it aright so as not to leave a vacuum for unfettered emotions or egotistical rage to run wild; wisely injecting into the activism sound shari‘ah guidance? When has the red line of too much politics been crossed? Is it hizbiyyah? Has salafi-ness or orthodoxy been soiled, contaminated or rendered void because of it?  If so, again, where are the scales with which all this is weighed? Where is the ijma‘? Moreover, would activism of Muslim minorities living in Western democracies have the same, or slightly different guidelines than activism in Muslim majority countries? Is there only one absolutist answer to each one of these questions, or is it likely to be a case of varying ijtihads in such highly complicated areas of human life?

43 – Once the manhaj had been questioned at this top level, it would filter down to the salafi foot soldiers in its usual reductive, simplistic fashion. The familiar psychology will then play out: backbiting; name-calling; slandering; disabusing this fellow Muslim of their sanctity and orthodoxy; bullying the faithful, where needed, so they fall in line with the latest manhaj fatwa, correction or u-turn; ideological intimidation of those who may have lingering doubts about the new manhaj stance they must adopt in terms of who’s now on or off; and, of course, the panic, excitement and PDFs generated in the process. It’s all part of the bog standard expressions of ungodliness that inevitably ensue. And no one asks the godly question: What clear sin has been committed by this person to warrant all this kerfuffle against him in the first place?

44 – Imam Ibn Taymiyyah once wrote: ‘If an instructor or a teacher insists that a person be boycotted, discredited, their reputation be damaged, or that they be expelled, it must be seen: If he has committed a sin in the eyes of the shari‘ah, he is punished according to the degree of the sin; but no more. But if he hasn’t, then it is not permissible to punish him in any way, just because the teacher or others wish it. It is not for teachers to disunite the people or to do that which will sow enmity or rancour between them. Instead, they should be like brothers co-operating on goodness and godliness; as Allah, Exalted is He, says: Help one another in righteousness and piety, help not one another in sin or transgression. [Q.5:2]’50

45 – Back to the Jami‘, where we find al-Albani offering the following sartorial criticism (in the context of Muslims living in majority Muslim countries, in the 1970s or 80s): That most leading Muslim activists and Islamists would imitate a western dress code, and oftentimes have no beards or barely a beard. For al-Albani, as for other salafis, this moved from being a fiqhi matter into a problem of manhaj.51 And then there was the dilemma of so-called salafi fiqh. Al-Albani insisted that, while following a madhhab or Sunni law-school was permissible and was better than following cowboy muftis with zero or half-baked learning in fiqh and fatwa, the true salafi way was not to be confined to one fiqh school. It was for this reason he declared Shaykh Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab to be salafi in ‘aqidah, but not in fiqh; since he limited himself to the Hanbali school (and a few tarjihat of Ibn Taymiyyah), not being an independent researcher in fiqh matters.52 This, of course, earned him the anger of certain other salafis, in certain quarters of the salafi world. It also proclaimed that Salafism demands the act of tarjih or ijtihad in fiqh: a volatile ingredient in the recipe of religious anarchy. It suggested, too, that the classically accepted view of someone being a salafi-Hanbali or salafi-Hanafi, as per the previous scholarly biographies, was somehow false, off-key, or at best, semi-Salafism. It would appear that classical notions of Salafism are open to criticism, but newer, contemporary notions of Salafism are not.

46 – Why should this all matter? The value we ascribe to words has a powerful way of moulding the way we think, construct ideas, view the world, or interact and govern others. Because contemporary Salafism – i.e. today’s idea of being salafi – is generally seen as a total orientation that embraces the entire gamut of the religious personality, we must be careful not to project this inclusiveness back in time, imaging Salafism has always been like this. It most certainly has not! Instead, it is part product of the many forces that gave rise to various other twentieth century isms. This is particularly so with the idea of salafi manhaj. With its arrival, no person’s salafi-ness, sanctity or honour was any longer safe from ijma‘-less accusations. Furthermore, once a religious issue is linked with manhaj, in the salafi mind, the issue then becomes one of orthodoxy (instead of seeing if the issue is actually one of usul or furu‘). And when conflating usul with furu‘, or the mujma‘ ‘alayhi with the mukhtalif fihi, or issues of ijma‘ with valid ijtihad – once blurring the distinction between such issues itself becomes a consistent, well-entrenched manhaj, or methodology, then how can that not be false Salafism?

That Salafism today has totally blurred the distinction between mujma‘ ‘alayhi or “agreed upon” issues and between mukhtalif fihi or the legitimately “differed over” issues, has proven incredibly lethal. Maverick preachers, possessing only a faint grasp of legal or theological doctrines, are now unleashed on the public. Zealous shaykhs, ustadhs or da‘is, ill-equipped to navigate the complex nuances embedded in classical Muslim scholarship, continue to erode and devalue ijma‘ theology. And Salafism, today, for maybe the most part, is fixated on externals; lacking the spiritual or intellectual depth which historically typified orthodoxy. How such a state of affairs came to characterise today’s Salafism is a question that I’ve touched upon, but the finer details must be passed over here.

Three things, then, need attending to urgently by today’s salafis: [i] Being clear about the difference between the usul and furu‘. [ii] Expending far greater effort to know what issues have classically been areas of legitimate difference, and to then train the soul to be tolerant and at ease in such areas of ijtihad and valid differing. [iii] Not filtering the entire scholastic legacy of Islam through the lens of a small band of past scholars, and an even tinier clique of current ones. This task calls for sincerity, sound traditional learning and, above all, reining in the ego. Without these, base metal will never turn into gold; and the lines between false and true Salafism will continue to be blurred or compromised.

Finally, while being acutely aware of the dangers of self-promotion, I hesitantly add that ‘salafism reconsidered’, in the categories section of this blog, might be a good place to find relevant articles for this corrective process.

Wa’Llahu wali al-tawfiq.

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