Aselam aleykum
This is something that has bee nbothering me for a while and which I would like some clarification:
The term Salafi seems often to be used in equivocation. For those not familiar with the term equivocation, here's a copy paste from wikipedia:
Equivocation is the use in a syllogism (a logical chain of reasoning) of a term several times, but giving the term a different meaning each time. For example:
A feather is light.
What is light cannot be dark.
Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.
In this use of equivocation, the word "light" is first used as the opposite of "heavy", but then used as a synonym of "bright" (the fallacy usually becomes obvious as soon as one tries to translate this argument into another language). Because the "middle term" of this syllogism is not one term, but two separate ones masquerading as one (all feathers are indeed "not heavy", but it is not true that all feathers are "bright")
Now, the same fallacy seems to be arising when people use the wor salafi freely. Because on one hand the word salaf means one of the early followers of Islam.
But on the other hand there is also the contemporary movement labeled as salafism. Some argue that both are actually the same thing. And that hence, anything that goes for the salaf, also goes for followers of salafism.
So, I guess my first question is:
Do people who follow the salafi path actually claim that there are not two different defenitions but that the word salafi can only mean one thing. Or do they recognise that there are indeed two diffrent defenitions/meanings for the word, but that the same still goes for both because they are sufficiently similar?