...very confused! Salafi's and Hadeeths!

format_quote Originally Posted by AnonymousGender

I apologize, as I am not sure where this thread should go. And also I don't want to cause the big 'madhab' debate. But recently I have been hearing that Salafi's only follow the hadeeths by Bukhari and Muslim? I have never heard or read this before. Please can some clarify this?
This was said in a debate about the benfits of following a madhab, that there is a hadeeth in Bukhari which allows mut'a marriages- which we now know has been abrogated (is that spelt right?). How ever Salafi's may just take this hadith and it would fit in wither desires and follow it stating that they are following the sunnah.
So as far as I have learnt is that yes we follow Qur'an and Sunnah yet we are aware that we are not scholars, and thats why we need the help scholars to teach the correct way to understand. Have I misunderstood?

Asalaamu Alaikum Wr Wb, Of course your correct. Read this short article, it is brilliant and will make things much clearer to you:

What is a Madhab? Why is it necessary to follow one?

The word madhhab is derived from an Arabic word meaning "to go" or "to take as a way", and refers to a mujtahid's choice in regard to a number of interpretive possibilities in deriving the rule of Allah from the primary texts of the Qur'an and hadith on a particular question.

In a larger sense, a madhhab represents the entire school of thought of a particular mujtahid Imam, such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi'i, or Ahmad--together with many first-rank scholars that came after each of these in their respective schools, who checked their evidences and refined and upgraded their work.

The mujtahid Imams were thus explainers, who operationalized the Qur'an and sunna in the specific shari'a rulings in our lives that are collectively known as fiqh or "jurisprudence". In relation to our din or "religion", this fiqh is only part of it, for the religious knowledge each of us possesses is of three types.

The first type is the general knowledge of tenets of Islamic belief in the oneness of Allah, in His angels, Books, messengers, the prophethood of Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), and so on.

All of us may derive this knowledge directly from the Qur'an and hadith, as is also the case with a second type of knowledge, that of general Islamic ethical principles to do good, avoid evil, cooperate with others in good works, and so forth.

Every Muslim can take these general principles, which form the largest and most important part of his religion, from the Qur'an and hadith. The third type of knowledge is that of the specific understanding of particular divine commands and prohibitions that make up the shari'a.

Here, because of both the nature and the sheer number of the Qur'an and hadith texts involved, people differ in the scholarly capacity to understand and deduce rulings from them. But all of us have been commanded to live them in our lives, in obedience to Allah, and so Muslims are of two types, those who can do this by themselves, and they are the mujtahid Imams; and those who must do so by means of another, that is, by following a mujtahid Imam, in accordance with Allah's word in Surat al-Nahl,

" Ask those who recall, if you know not " (Qur'an 16:43), and in Surat al-Nisa, " If they had referred it to the Messenger and to those of authority among them, then those of them whose task it is to find it out would have known the matter " (Qur'an 4:83), in which the phrase those of them whose task it is to find it out, expresses the words "alladhina yastanbitunahu minhum", referring to those possessing the capacity to draw inferences directly from the evidence, which is called in Arabic istinbat.

These and other verses and hadiths oblige the believer who is not at the level of istinbat or directly deriving rulings from the Qur'an and hadith to ask and follow someone in such rulings who is at this level. It is not difficult to see why Allah has obliged us to ask experts, for if each of us were personally responsible for evaluating all the primary texts relating to each question, a lifetime of study would hardly be enough for it, and one would either have to give up earning a living or give up ones din, which is why Allah says in surat al-Tawba, in the context of jihad:

" Not all of the believers should go to fight. Of every section of them, why does not one part alone go forth, that the rest may gain knowledge of the religion and admonish their people when they return, that perhaps they may take warning " (Qur'an 9:122).

The slogans we hear today about "following the Qur'an and sunna instead of following the madhhabs" are wide of the mark, for everyone agrees that we must follow the Qur'an and the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace).

The point is that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) is no longer alive to personally teach us, and everything we have from him, whether the hadith or the Qur'an, has been conveyed to us through Islamic scholars.

So it is not a question of whether or not to take our din from scholars, but rather, from which scholars. And this is the reason we have madhhabs in Islam: because the excellence and superiority of the scholarship of the mujtahid Imams--together with the traditional scholars who followed in each of their schools and evaluated and upgraded their work after them--have met the test of scholarly investigation and won the confidence of thinking and practicing Muslims for all the centuries of Islamic greatness.

The reason why madhhabs exist, the benefit of them, past, present, and future, is that they furnish thousands of sound, knowledge-based answers to Muslims questions on how to obey Allah. Muslims have realized that to follow a madhhab means to follow a super scholar who not only had a comprehensive knowledge of the Qur'an and hadith texts relating to each issue he gave judgements on, but also lived in an age a millennium closer to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and his Companions, when taqwa or "godfearingness" was the norm--both of which conditions are in striking contrast to the scholarship available today.

While the call for a return to the Qur'an and sunna is an attractive slogan, in reality it is a great leap backward, a call to abandon centuries of detailed, case-by-case Islamic scholarship in finding and spelling out the commands of the Qur'an and sunna, a highly sophisticated, interdisciplinary effort by mujtahids, hadith specialists, Qur'anic exegetes, lexicographers, and other masters of the Islamic legal sciences.

To abandon the fruits of this research, the Islamic shari'a, for the following of contemporary sheikhs who, despite the claims, are not at the level of their predecessors, is a replacement of something tried and proven for something at best tentative.

The rhetoric of following the shari'a without following a particular madhhab is like a person going down to a car dealer to buy a car, but insisting it not be any known make--neither a Volkswagen nor Rolls-Royce nor Chevrolet--but rather "a car, pure and simple". Such a person does not really know what he wants; the cars on the lot do not come like that, but only in kinds.

The salesman may be forgiven a slight smile, and can only point out that sophisticated products come from sophisticated means of production, from factories with a division of labor among those who test, produce, and assemble the many parts of the finished product.

It is the nature of such collective human efforts to produce something far better than any of us alone could produce from scratch, even if given a forge and tools, and fifty years, or even a thousand. And so it is with the shari'a, which is more complex than any car because it deals with the universe of human actions and a wide interpretative range of sacred texts.

This is why discarding the monumental scholarship of the madhhabs in operationalizing the Qur'an and sunna in order to adopt the understanding of a contemporary sheikh is not just a mistaken opinion. It is scrapping a Mercedes for a go-cart.

JazakAllah. I understand that, I mean even when you follow a madhab your following a scholar...whether your a safali, Hanafi, Hanbali... we all are relying on a scholar to teach us in a way.
Any thoughts to my first sentence on first post? Don't Salafi's look at all books of hadith bu take the one with strongest chain or narration, and fulfills the other criteria of becoming a good hadith?

Salafi's follow all hadith and evidence, not specifically the ones from Bukhary and Muslim, however hadith and traditions get more authenticated all the time and new ones are found all the time, Al-Albani for example was a contemporary scholar who reviewed and reclassified many of the hadith. Salafi's immediately adopt any proven habit of the Salaf, the three generations of the prophet and the companions, and their two successive generations, because those were the ones that transfered the knowledge best from the prophet and were declared to be the best of the Islamic nation by the prophet in an authenticated hadith.

Madhab is a methodology of studying that scholars follow, not necessary for laymen to adopt and forsake other opinions. Madhab following can be good as it establishes continuity, but it can go overboard because it may generate favouratism and attachment, as many laypeople will tell you sometimes they ARE Maliki or Shafie. Adopting an opinion passed down in schools despite more contemporary scholars finding original evidence that what the prophet said and the companions did was something else is of course what simple common sense dictates not to do, and it is also the original statements of the Imams of those schools themselves: "Not to follow everything they said even when there is proof that truth lay with the different opinion". But madhabs are very widely used by Salafi scholars and many are Hanbali and Hanafi, where if things don't have textual clear proof from Quran and Sunnah, an analysis of the principals of fiqh and jurisprudence is necessary to reach a favoured opinion.

ANd God knows Best

Can a marriage between some-one who has this opion of salafis work? Or should a person not marry some-one who has this belief that salafis only follow hadiths from Bukhari and Muslim? How should the children be bought up?
p.s I am the OP- I do apologize for going slightly off topic- but I started this thread with marriage in mind..so InshaAllah it's not too off topic?

threads like these remind me of what a great help madhabs are to us.

without madhabs, although it doesnt always happen, it is easy to fall into confusion and at times even chaos.


Sister i advise you to stick to a madhab, stick to Aqeedah at-tahawiyyah and die upon that.


As for your future husband, if his upon that then its very very good inshAllah

Assalamu Alaikum

It is me who does not kind of associate myself to a madhab, whereas....it...seems to be of of strong Hanfi background, and with possible misconceptions of those who consider themselves as Salafi. I don't know...I agree madhabs are useful, as long as you are following it correctly...
. If I were to consider myself as a Salafi- would it cause friction with a Hanafi man?
How do you find out if someone is following Islam? My Dad is of high religious standin in my society- wears a thobe, speaks about following islam, Qur'an and Sunnah importance of Madhabs..but then he does things like 'Shabe Meraj'..etc. But if someone were to not ask him that q' specifically they would think he was doing everything right...wouldnt they?
I am just sooooo confused, that I am not sure if Im making sense or babbling..

Wa alaykum us-Salaam
^sometimes people are just genuinely ignorant so i think the best thing to do is sit and explain to him your point of view and where you come from and you should research and/or ask him more about the issues you are having trouble understanding and see whether you're in the wrong or not so yh just talk and research as there could be genuine misunderstanding about the issues the both of you may have.

Perhaps you should try and discuss this issue with your spouse-to-be, or if that's not possible, get someone to do so on your behalf? And you can explain that being a Salafi simply means you are following the Qur'an and the Sunnah in the way that the salaf understood them. It's quite simple really, it's just that there are a lot of misconceptions being circulated about them. Do istikharah and seek the advice of someone you trust and has knowledge and wisdom Insha'Allaah.

P.S. You only have to open a book by a "salafi" scholar to find that they quote hadeeth from all the books of hadeeth (provided they are authentic), not just Al-Bukhari and Muslim.

^ I agree. Sister, you're taking this out of proportion. If a man doesn't know what Salafi manhaj is, that doesn't scar his faith nor doesn't deter you two from being together at all. He just needs to be educated by reading any sites or books that explain the manhaj of the Salaf Saleh, and it would be best if he also speaks to a sheikh on the Salaf who is also a Hanafi scholar so that he doesn't think about the advice being from someone of a different methodology school (although I am not liking this separation of religion).

No true salafi will ever tell you not to follow a math-hab, since all the four imaams are themselves from the salaf and we are obliged to follow them. Rather what almost all salafis call to is that people should not blindly follow any scholar. If Imaam Shaafi'ee, however great scholar he might be, made a ruling and made a mistake [since he only is a human after all] and lets say Imaam Ahmad bin Hanbal his student corrects this mistake, should we say no but Imaam Shaafi'ee said! Do you think you have more knowledge then Imaam Shaafi'ee brother!? But in truth that is not the issue.

Secondly, as has been mentioned salafiyyah should not be place alongside terms like hanbali or hanafi since this is a clear confusion. Imaam Aboo Haneefah aswell as the other Imaams where all from the salaf themselves, you cant get more salafi then that.

Lastly, if one studies the history of Islaam one will realise how bad the people misunderstood the math-habs and why they were established in the first place. People said a hanafi woman cannot marry a shaafi'ee man and vice versa, but some of these scholars gave fatwa saying it is indeed allowed for a man to marry such a woman since muslim men are allowed to marry christians and jews. Yaa SubhanAllah! They took their own brethren outside of Islaam. This even reached such levels that the holiest of masjids in Makkah had four mihraabs and each group would pray their salah individually.

This is how people misunderstood math-haabs throughout time.