SALAFIYYAH IS FREE FROM INDIVIDUALISM

By

Ibn Abdillah As-sudaisiy Al-Iloori

We would always encourage people to like and stick to scholars who are firm upon the truth (the Sunnah and Manhaj Salaf). But if someone is tried with the fitnah of not liking a Sheikh due to a reason best known to him, that alone doesn't qualify him to be labelled an innovator or being from the people of whims and desire.

Let us know quite frankly that salafiyyah is free from individualism. No individual should lay claim to its ownership directly or indirectly and it should not be pinned to a personality. It is a path of adherence to the way of the best three or four generations of the Ummah. This is the path we all seek to be upon in accordance with evidences from the Qur'an and Sunnah. 

Therefore, it is wrong to remove someone from the fold of the Sunnah just because he doesn't like a particular scholar that you hold in high esteem. When you ask some people why they declare some people to be innovators, they will say: because he doesn't like Sheikh so and so.  When has liking or taking knowledge from an individual (no matter how knowledgeable) becomes a yardstick for measuring who and who is upon salafiyyah? Those whose likeness and allegiance determines our salafiyyah (Islaam based on the understanding of the salaf) is well spelt out in the Qur'an and Sunnah. Without liking Allaah, the Prophets and the Companions رضي الله عنهم, we can't claim to be upon the path of the salaf. Their love is wajib upon every Muslim. But as for individuals among scholars or students of knowledge, it is possible for an individual not to subscribe to someone, (perhaps due to methodology or any other reason best known to him) and still be upon righteous creed. That shouldn't create unnecessary tension in the society. 

To some people now, anyone who says anything against their own choice of scholars is thrown out of salafiyyah as if salafiyyah is built upon that individual. Let us be careful of falling into ghuluww over personalities that we often accuse the sufees and hizbees of. The unjust labelling and tabdee' of scholars who are well known to be upon Sunnah and preaching against evils should stop for Allah's sake. 

If you advise an individual or a group of people to stop mixing or dealing with the ahlu bid'ah and hizbees and they don't take correction, that shouldn't lead to labelling of one another. You have done your own part by drawing their attention to their errors, and Allaah would reward you. But do not transgress by falling into the fitnah of making tabdee' without proper basis. All these doors of fitan must be closed for us to effectively manage the successes recorded so far in da'wah of Sunnah in our society.

May Allah guide us aright