Understanding Salafism: Seeking the Path of the Pious Predecessors

by Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi

Although certain doctrines have been described in classical Islamic scholarship with the adjective salafī, the use of Salafism (al-salafiyya) as an abstract noun – claiming to represent some comprehensive system – is a recent phenomenon.

When one uses the term ‘Salafi’ in any context today, it is undeniably understood as a reference to the puritan Salafi movement, and not the revivalist efforts of a group of thinkers in the early part of the twentieth century.

Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb did not simply condemn prevalent practices in the Muslim world as blameworthy religious innovation (bidʿa), he regularly labeled masses of Muslims as idol-worshippers (mushrikūn) due to what he perceived as practices that he considered idolatrous,

Thus, it is unsurprising that the Salafi insistence on the literalness of such phrases used in the sacred texts has led them to be accused of anthropomorphism. In fact, the most iconic figure of Salafism, Ibn Taymiyya, was put on trial and jailed for this very charge.

The appellation ‘ahl al-Sunna wa-l-jamāʿa’ (The People of the Sunna and the Community)29 – which is the term Sunnism is abbreviated for – is considered by Salafis as exclusively applying to them in its proper and fullest sense. Hence, for Salafis, they and they alone are the true ‘Sunnis,’ that is, the Saved Sect and the Aided Group. Authorities within Salafism, whether proto-Salafis like Ibn Taymiyya or modern Salafis like Muḥammad b. Salih al-Uthaymin (d. 2001) – one of the leading icons of the movement in the twentieth century – have, however, acknowledged ‘a general, technical usage’ (istilāḥ al-ʿamma) of the term ‘ahl al-sunna’ as encompassing other non-Salafi groups which are opposed to the Shiʿa.