salafi Islam or mainstream Islam ? , after converting from shia islam to sunni Islam , I have been confused about groups , I haven't actually joined a group , but everyone seems to be in a group , the type of Muslims I have been surrounded by is mainly salafi's , lately it has started to get to me . Salafi's are supposed to follow the 1st 3 generations of salaf, yet all the other 4 school of thoughts do exactly the same , so what makes them think they are so special ?
One of the reasons why I converted to sunni islam , was the lack of mercy and forgiveness in shia islam , in regards to their opinions on the sahaba , which I do not want to go into in great detail . I have always been into spiritual side of Islam , cleansing the heart and finding out who are you ? . Loving Allah , being close to Allah , salafi manhaj idea's are very rigid , they do not talk much about it . They make you think all other groups are deviated except salafi manhaj .
I have started getting sick of it , I went to a 2 day conference with salafi's I became really depressed , because it just felt so dead . I was living with people who were just so clueless , I'm just tired of people following something like a flock of sheep . Check the ingredients before you consume it ! .
I ask Allah to open the way for me to study the science's in Islam , hadeeth , quran and Arabic . One thing I have realized now is that , I have to go and study classical Islam , salafi ideas are very new , frankly speaking they think other peoples ideas are bidah , I'm starting to think wether their ideas is bidah ?
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Oh Gosh.. That was soooooooo me.. I searched & searched.. And the best reply that got to my heart was written to me by a brother who's always in my prayers.. Hope it helps you.. I can't & won't say much on that as my knowledge is very limited.. I'll just paste his words..
"first of all: "Those who strive for Us, we will certainly guide in OurWAYS; God is with the doers of good" [29:69].... notice the plural ofways...so pray to God that he guide you to one of his the ways acceptable toHim. second: Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna Institiute, Imam Ghazzali, Nuh Keller areall Sunni Sufis.Ibn al Qayyim al Jawzeyah is also a sunni hanbali sufi. Imam Nawawi wasi think was a sunni sufi of the shafi'i madhab. personally, i became very interested in sufism, read a ton of books onsufism, and then for a short time became shi'i. then i came back tosunnism and became stricter than ever. I have found certain sufi shaykhswho are very very strict about following the sunna and not deviating aninch from the way laid down by our Prophet, like Shams Tabrizi (who,contrary to popular myth and legend, is the most strict sufi i have everread about..) but the book of his sayings, "Me & Rumi", is really reallyadvanced and you wouldnt understand 1/5th of it unless you read tens andtens of books on sufism and philosophy and tafsir and stuff. so iwouldnt read it... but Kabir Helminski from sufism.org is working onanother translation of some of his sayings that will probably be easier. The best best book is definitly called The Path of Muhammad, translatedby shaikh Tosun Bayrak. It was written by a sufi who, like ShamsTabrizi, calls for a return to the purest islam imagineable.. evencriticizes any sufi practice that was not done by the Prophet. It isbasically a book about how to live everyday life, with quran and hadithabout everything you could imagine. i truly believe anyone who uses thatbook can perfect his character, like the prophet said " i came toperfect human character". the book shows you how islam demands the mostperfect standards of ethics and morality imagineable, to create the mostperfect humans imagineable. basically, just be a sunni.. read some sufism, but be wary of anythingthat doesnt seem to conform with the way of the prophet. As for the fourmadhabs, it doesnt matter which one you follow.. following them is onlybecause you dont feel you have enough knowledge about hadith and quranto make your own judgments... but you are not allowed to think that youHAVE to follow them. if you think that you HAVE to follow a certainmadhab and that you cant take certain things from different madhabs thenyou are guilty of putting another book beside the quran and hadith andof putting a scholar above the quran. Even imam abu hanifa said peopleare not allowed to follow his rulings unless they understand exactly thelogic and the quranic proof he used to reach each ruling, otherwise theywill be putting another book as an authority beside the quran. imammalik was also crying the night before he died and said he wished henever created his laws, because he feared that he added laws other thanthe laws of the quran and the sunna.. therefore you cannot think of what any of the 4 imams as laws. you canfollow them, but think of them as advice, not laws. personally i prefernot to follow a madhab and use my own ijtihad. this is what isrecommended by ibn qayyim al jawziyyah and many of islam's greatestscholars. In any case, dont sweat it... take it easy.. If you want toread more about this, i truly recommend "This Law of Ours" by MuhammadAsad. Great great book about the sharia and the madhabs and the originalspirit of Islam as practiced by the prophet's companions and thefollowing generations. and remember, stay away from wahhabis, the prophet said nothing willcome from Najd (the birthplace of wahhabism) than earthquakes, fitna,and the horn of shaytan. as for outer/inward sciences: you have to have a good balance of both.but dont go reading any books on spirituality if you dont do your fivedaily prayers. p.s. please tell me what's the name of the ibn al qayyim's jawziyyahbook that you said was amazing. i would love to get it. oh and I just remembered!! I have an amazon "listmania!" called"Following Muhammad (pbuh)"... In it i talk about all the books that Ithink guide to exact following of the prophet, and I begin it withrecommending as many biographies of the prophet as possible.. i tihnkeveryoe has to really read the biography of the prophet and understandit well, more than one, and more than once.. so that everyone can trulyunderstand the mentality of the prophet (pbuh) and learn to think likehim, and it will help you make proper decisions in your life. Just dontget the first one on the list its way too long. http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R1ODWL8RTDQLSW/002-1405490-1229653?%5Fencoding=UTF8 I hope this link will work for you."
"i saw many "sects" that i cantpossibly conceive how they would go to hell... for example, we havesunnis, we have zaydi shias in yemen, we have many sects that are nowextinct that had nothing heretical about them. there is soooo muchdiversity now in the muslim world and in many cases its hard to see themgoing to hell.. afterall the quran repeats a verse TWICE that theChristians, the Jews, the Sabeans, all those who believe in God and thelast day and do good deeds shall not fear or grieve. and there are manyquranic ayats saying that there are good communities among the ahlulkitab who are considered among the righteous. so how is it that thoseppl will be saved but not all of those different muslim sects, many ofwhom have nothing wrong with them (that is not to say that there arentmany heretical muslim sects). so stick to the holy Quran which says "We shall guide you to Our WAYS".thus it is possible to have more than one way to Allah (swt). if you need to study, then study. dont be afraid.. keep praying andinshalla God will keep you on the straight path if you strive, for Goddoes not break his promises. I recommended some readings but you donthave to read any of them. I hope my efforts are a sadaqa jariyah. i dontsee how they could be a bad deed... one thing the prophet told us is toalways think well of our Muslim brothers and sisters and to think thatthey have pure intentions. and al a3maalu bil niyyat, so Allah knowsthat this is just my sincere effort to help you, and if i happen to bewrong then I hope Allah will judge me by my intentions. I dont see however how i could be wrong by telling you to read as manybiographies of the prophet as possible or "the path of muhammad" whichis a book of hadiths and ayaat on islamic morals and ethics... it's justmy advice to follow the prophet as closely as possible. And remember that Islam is pure and simple. dont over complicate things.It is by complicating things that people go astray. Shams Tabrizi quotes this hadith: A Bedouin came to the Prophet and said, "Tell me of such a deed as willmake me enter Paradise if I do it." The Prophet (p.b.u.h) said, "WorshipAllah, and worship none along with Him, offer the (five) prescribedcompulsory prayers perfectly, pay the compulsory Zakat, and fast themonth of Ramadan." The Bedouin said, "By Him, in Whose Hands is my life,I will not do more than this." When he (the Bedouin) left, the Prophetsaid, "Whoever likes to see a man of Paradise, then he may look at thisman."-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Number 480 then Shams continued: that is the simply and pure following of Muhammad.but people wanted to overcomplicate things and to add and add until theyleft following of the prophet. if you look at the biographies of the companions, and the hadiths of theprophet.. they never get into complicated discussions about aqeeda, orabout the essence of God, or freewill... in Bukhari, the prophet warnsnever to discuss the essence of God or too many questions about what Godis like and to simply say "a3oodhu billahi minash shaytan ar-rajeem"when ppl keep discussing this, for they are tricks by the devil to leadppl astray. one time the prophet came upon people discussing free willvs destiny and got so angry that his face went red and he said "is thiswhy I was sent to you"? no, the prophet was sent to tell us to believe in one God, to submit tothis God, to say the shahadah.. and to do good deeds.. "Whoever believesin God and the last day and does good deeds shall have no fear nor shallthey grieve"... this verse is repeated twice like i said. that's all you need. no need to be confused or scared or anything. again, if you read the Quran and Seera, you can make your own ijtihadsabout simple decisions in life in accordance with the spirit of Islam.There are quranic ayats and events from the sira (which i will tell youabout if you're interested) which prove that ijtihad like this is theway of the salaf. however if there is something really complicated likea matter of law or money or whatever, then just pick one of the 4madhabs and follow its founder as security because they know more thanyou.. as long as you dont think of what they say as laws beside the lawsof God. and be careful about hanbalites because most of them dontactually follow the true teachings of imam ibn hanbal, so i would pickone of the other three just in case (of course imam ibn hanbal himselfwas great, but it is sad that his followers have deviated from what hesaid so much)."
Pray for yourself sis.. :)
Salaams
Ma sha Allah, you write very beautiful poetry. Insha Allah, I'll be stopping by again in the future.
Ma'as salama,
Abdur Rahman
Salaam Sister,
I was "born into" a Sunni family. I guess technically we are Hanafi but I wasn't even aware of what the four schools of thought were until I was in high school. I think Sunni Islam an the four schools of thought are very outdated since they do not allow for much Ijtehad...and I believe Muslims were meant to use Ijtehad, which is what made Islam such a dynamic and beautiful faith to begin with - the individual has a direct connection with Allah swt instead of blindly following an artificial hierarchy of scholars.
This may be a radical idea, but I am studying Islamic revivalism and the Plain Muslim movement. I honestly believe that one should turn to the Quran and the Hadith for answers, and not rely so much on the Shariah of the schools.
I also believe Salafais alienate their fellow brothers and sisters in Islam.
sorry if that was very long or very confusing but that's just my two cents.
It isn't that those who are classified as salafi think they are special. They do not reject the 4 main madhabs in any way.
What they do is take that which has the most sound evidence.
So for example lets pretend that the Hanafi madhab says that we should all hop on one foot and it is backed up with 2 hadeeth. But Maliki says this is not right and backs up his position with 5 hadeeth....salafi choose this.
And it isn't individual people like me or you making that judgement, it is scholars who are educated in each of the schools of thought.
:) Thanks for the note about Hannah
I follow the salafi minhaj and i am pleased with it because i find it to be comprehensive in using quran and ahadeeth. WE do not claim to follow one iman because we follow all 4 of the imans. One has to recognize that the imans all agreed to leaving that which is not correct for that which is better if there is found sound proof even after they have made descions. Ahadeeth is a science and not one person knew all at one time. They combined thier knowledge as best they could. Do not become discourage because you find them to be rigid. They call you to what is good. Would you want to leave that which is good for that which is worse?
for instance Sufism... they worship graves by dancing over them. They sing and play music.. they dhikr all day long in hopes of becoming one with Allah.. when Allah has told us this could never happen.. What is sound about those things?
Please read .. read alot about the minhaj of salafi.. and you will find contentment... and raise your iman insha Allah and become a person who is not confused insha Allah.
anonymouse- see this is exactly the type of atitude that annoys me , you seem to think that you have the strongest opinion ? on what basis , rigidness does not exist in islam , and when I am talking about tassawuf, I am not refering to deviated sufi groups who do intercession .
salafis have some positive things , but their is alot of stuff their that I could not cope with , biase, rigid , narrowmindid, they think they are on manhaj al salaf and everyone else well their not 'proper' muslims , ie.ht's yes you should leave that for a stronger hadeeth , but the reality is salafis dont do that , i think you need to wake up to the reality that salafis not only worsen the disunity in the ummah , they make islam very dead in spiritualism ...and it seems like it is just a bunch of rules for them , haram this and halal this ...
another point anonymouse, what would you say if I told you that I know sufis who think music is haram ? and grave worshipping is haram ? and who are very strict in decipline more so then people who follow the salafi manhaj ,why? because they do something that is very important , purification of the heart , salafis do talk about to a certain extent , but their isnt special emphasis on it , how often did you hear bin baz talking about the soul ?
I suggest you read the 1st comment :) that sara left me .
Sister Poetic,
You really shouldn't classify all people who follow the salafi as rigid and spiritless. As you seem to find it offensive that a person assumes all sufi's are deviant likewise it is offensive how you classify salafi's. Personally I reject being classified in any manner other than being called a Muslim.
You said you didn't like the anonymous posters attitude yet I do not detect one at all. I don't think this person was claiming to have the strongest opinion personally. She is claiming that the strongest evidence in Qur'an and sunnah is that which should be followed, this can not be disputed by any of us ( I am not a scholar). And salafi scholars do that though you claim they do not. If an individual who is not a scholar is giving you tafseer then I can see how you are not understanding this way of observing Islam.
As far as tasawuuf (when simply defined as spirituality and eliminating those things mentioned in prior comments) it is already part of Islam. Spirituality has always been part of Islam and no one needs a certian madhab to obtain it. It is a very personal thing that can really only be achieved privately. It is not something that can be taught as we all obtain it in a different way.
As far as bin Baz, if you really have listened to and read his lectures you would know that his belief is that in following the true path, studying the true path, striving for paradise, praying and worshipping Allah one will obtain the spirituality we all desire. Really this is what tasawuuf is but bin Baz did not believe that an individual needs a spiritual guide as some people believe.
agadir_girl , I do not think all people who follow the salafi manhaq are spiritless, I have friends who are salafis and are certainly not like that , sorry if my comment came out like that , I was more talking about the actual theology of salafism , the fact that bin baz does not believe that is a very strange thing indeed , this has been practiced centurys until salafi islam came about in the 20th century I think , salafi islam in comparison to classical islam is very different in its ideas , although it does look very ideal follow all 4 imams , in reality that is not happening .
also their are different types of salafis , saudi salafis , modern salafis, ect ..so many types even within them to the extent they disagree with eachother . salafi manhaj is an established group , werease mainstream islam is not . I am still reasearching I really want to understand why all of this looks shady , but what I have seen of salafi manhaj has not left a positive impression on me .
one other point , yes I know salafis talk about getting closer to allah through worship ect ...but the reality is the human is not very deciplined , you need a spiritual guide . what I also find very intresting , is that salafis themselves the knowledge they take from are people who themselves practiced tassawuf ibn qayyim is one of them , imam nawawi and just today I was told by someone who studied in saudi that ibn taymmiyah , who followd a paticular tariqa . reasearch my sister , I think you will find it very intresting .
Salafism isn't something new though the name is. The idea of a person to teach one how to be spiritual is not originally part of Islam though being spiritual is.
What is happening 'in actuality' is of little meaning to the truth of Islam. There certainly are people who consider themselves 'salafi' who don't practice it properly...just as we see terrorists calling themselves Muslim.
I think we are defining tasawuf differently. It does not specifically mean using a spiritual guide to become spiritual. It simply means spirituality. Salam.
Interesting topic for sure.
wow... this gets into a lot that i know nothing of...
i say to follow your heart and what your mind tells you to follow. if you don't like what you hear, what you see, what you're told... then go elsewhere. you will find the right place for you.
i am spiritual and converted to islam 4 yrs ago but have yet to feel complete after seeing things i've seen in the religion. i see a lot of negative attitudes, negative ppl, negative things and it's depressing...
one day i hope to be guided to the right place.
umm naief- I suffer from the same depressing dilema's! you probabely feel depressed because your surrounded by arabs! because Now I just avoid them at all costs , becuase of the negative feelings I get from them .
Do not judge islam by muslims because yes all you will get is negativity , but the more I learn about what allah is and who allah is , you can call him god as well :) allah just means that , you start to realize their is more then meets the eye .
ask god umm naief , he will give it to you , he will take care of it , just try one day by yourself and have a convo directly with god he will answer you :) trust me through signs or through your heart or through inspiration .
( not all arabs are negative , I just find the back home style ones are , very unspiritual and materialistic, which sometimes I do not blame them for that ignorance I guess)
Sallamalikum,
being one who follows the hanafi madhab and note i didnt call myself a "hanafi"....i have read a lot of things "salafis" talk about and if one notices or one who is sound abt what his madhab talks about you will find "salafi"teachings are compatible with what all 4 madhabs ascribe....itz disappointing to see muslims themselves terming those who dont choose to follow a certain madhab as salafis and wahhabists and treat them as if they are radical scum......radicalism has nothin to do with madhabs or moveents in islam....unfortunately people will not call themselves muslims but hanafi,shafi or wahhabi etc even all of these 4 imams and reforms like ibnwahhab(rahimullah)specifically didnt name their eary followers as such...itz time we stopped doing it and united against what is really killing islam----the parasite which calls itself muslim and seeing which enemies of islam rejoice to no bounds---Shia"Islam"......and by that i dont mean killing them but itz time we blocked its spread by improving our knowledge inshallah of islam by watever madhab and spreading it to shia infected places.....and dont be stereotyping arabs....u shud b ashamed saying that as a muslim...im indian and i can tell u the arab wurld has destroyed islam's image no more than countries like india and pakistan where many a plagues have spread.....view not arabs for their ethnicity but their religion....the greatest..the one which will lead us to good and jannah inshallah
walkum wasalam !
in fact I wrote this post when I was very confused , I suggest you come and join the discussions over my other blog www.confusedaboutlife.wordpress.com
I realize now it is just the group members that cause the confusion , being a salafi does nto mean you can not , follow a madhab , Ihate these terms because they cause confusion , I actualy have the same opinion as you .
I would like to follow a madhab but it seems that the only ones that are following a madhab here in the uk are the sufis , I am still confused , just not as confused !
would be nice to see join the discussions.
by the way I usd to be shia I have has my own little journey to sunni islam .
oops sorry about the typing mistakes
There is a lot of misconception circulating concerning all different sects. You'll have Salafi's stating that Tablighi's have innovated bidat, Tablighi's claiming Salafi's are stuck up and arrogant, and then you've got to deal with each person following a different Madhahab claiming that their's is the one and true way to do everything.
My husband is primarily Shafi. I was raised Hanafi. Our fathers are both Tablighi's. At the same time, we both truly loved the devotion of the Salaf's to the deen and the spirituality and love of dhikr that the sufi's have. When we married we had a very long conversation about this because there is so much confusion circulating around today. Our decision in the end is that we are MUSLIM.
None of these groups and sects matters if when you have an action to perform, you turn to the most authentic opinion from the Quran and Sunnah. We believe in the principles of the Salaf, but we also accept the Tablighi effort. (Sounds somewhat hypocritical, but we do have a reasoning for this which nobody has so far be able to talk down)
When we adopted this point of view, we noticed the rivalry and baseless accusations each side levies on one another and realised that at the end of the day, our deen is not reliant upon following a 'group' or knowing where we stand. Our deen relies upon our trust in Allah, in our efforts in practicing as much of the Sunnah as possible and in leaving that which does not concern up.
I hope I've made sense here, heh.
Also, as a sidenote, please be mindful of the things you hear from certain people concerning other groups. Not everything you hear is true. Immature people will never cease to exist, trying to allow the Shaytaan into our midst.
Each 'sect' you hear of will have it's good and bad people and good and bad qualities that have weaved into their ranks over time. Acceptance of Allah is the most important thing of all. Ask Allah for guidance sincerly, as he is with you always.
umm e h
I have past this phase since writing this post , I feel frustrated with the ummah , yes its true each groups has good and bad , and each group has some form of deviation any way, I think the best thing is not associate yourself with any group stay a muslim haneef , if anyone tells you something ask them where they got that from ect .
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