Why I Am a Salafi. Michael Muhammad Knight

without further speculating or elaborating on them. The Salaf did not try to reinterpret what Allh said about himself, nor did they compare Allh’s attributes to those of his creation: The Salaf affirmed that Allh possesses a hand without trying to understand the nature of that hand, nor did they attempt to interpret the character of Allh’s “hearing, sight, knowledge, ability, strength, might and speech” beyond his self-descriptions. The Salaf were neither allegorizers nor anthropomorphists. The Salaf accepted that Allh’s word was not created at a particular moment of time, but exists eternally with Allh, and they would “not allow it to be interpreted by mere opinions, as this is a form of speaking about Allh without knowledge.”¹³ They also believed that everything that ever happened or would happen, good or undesirable, had been decreed by Allh and written in the Preserved Tablet.¹⁴

      A Summary’s second fundamental declares faith to be “a statement with the tongue, action with the limbs, and belief in the heart,” and that faith increases with obedience and decreases with disobedience.¹⁵ However, the third fundamental clarifies that those on the creed of the Salaf do not declare any Muslim to be a disbeliever due to sinful actions, “unless he rejects something that is well known by necessity from the religion.”¹⁶ The fourth point tells us that the Salaf considered obedience to Muslim authorities to be a religious obligation, unless these authorities commanded disobedience to Allh, and notes that this position constitutes “the opposite of what the misguided sects believe.”¹⁷

      A Summary’s fifth fundamental says that loving Muammad’s Companions is a requirement of faith, and “hating them is disbelief and hypocrisy.” It is clarified here that a Companion is anyone who knew the Prophet while a Muslim, “whether he accompanied him for a year, a month, a day or an hour.”¹⁸ This positions the true Muslim against “innovators” like the Raafidhah (Sh’as), who “curse the Companions and deny their virtues.” The Companions were capable of error as individuals but protected from error as a community. In further disputation against Sh’as, A Summary adds that the Saved Sect loves the family of the Prophet, and that this includes his wives, who were “pure and innocent of every evil.”¹⁹

      In its sixth fundamental, A Summary states that only Allh knows the otherworldly fates of his creations, and no one can name his/herself or anyone else as destined for paradise or hellfire. The seventh point requires belief in the karaamaat (“extraordinary feats”) of righteous believers, which are clearly discernible from disbelievers’ acts of witchcraft, magic, deception, or that in which devils might assist them.²⁰

      The eighth fundamental concerns method. How do those on the path of the Salaf know what they know? “Evidences and proofs,” says A Summary, rather than “mystical interpretations” or preference for anyone’s word above that of Allh and his messenger. They can follow qualified scholars and schools of law, but none of these are infallible, and it is acceptable that a Muslim could switch from one legal school to another based on whichever school demonstrates superior understanding and evidence for its positions.²¹ Independent reasoning based on the Qur’n and Sunna is allowed but regulated with serious disclaimers, accessible only to those who “fulfill its conditions that are well known with the scholars.”²²

      The ninth fundamental is that Muslims on the path of the Salaf command the right and forbid the wrong. Finally, A Summary’s tenth fundamental rejects the “people of innovation who introduce new things into the religion.”²³ To innovate in one’s religion denies the perfection of what Allh has provided, becoming a sort of polytheism: To deny the modes of knowledge and practice prescribed in A Summary essentially renders you a worshiper of idols. The followers of the pious predecessors, therefore, steer clear of innovators:

      They do not love them, they do not accompany them, they do not listen to their speech, they do not sit with them, they do not argue with them concerning the religion, nor do they exchange views with them. They prefer to protect their ears from listening to their falsehoods.²⁴

      Two things fascinate me about this pamphlet. First, its “fundamentals” emerged as such in response to debates and power struggles between Muslims after Muammad’s death. What it presents as the timeless and original message can be exposed as having been formulated through a specific history. Second, though the pamphlet bears the name of a scholar who supervised its compilation, A Summary seems to deny its authorship. This team cannot be seen as having performed creative or productive work; their job was to deliver an item without leaving any trace of their presence. If this “creed of the Salaf” is really as clear and straightforward as the pamphlet claims, why do we need the pamphlet?

      If Muslims are always arguing for Islam against others, whether their adversaries are non-Muslims or fellow Muslims that they see as illegitimate, there can never be an Islam that articulates itself with no input from outside, no culture-free Islam. There can be no pamphlet that just produces Islam as it is—apart from maybe Allh’s supreme pamphlet, the Qur’