format_quote Originally Posted by
Mustafa16
ive considered salafism, but i want to know more info about it......i know that they believe in following the salaf us saalih (pious predecessors, first 3 generations of muslims), and that they follow athari aqeedah......but I am still unsure if I want to follow them....my dad doesn't want me to join them because he says he used to go to a salafi mosque and they were too extreme ...
People are not typically defined by what they believe but what they do NOT believe. In that sense, your disbeliefs are much more important than your beliefs. In fact, Islam can be defined as the disbelief in other gods than the one, single, true God. The difference with pagans is not the belief in the One God. Most pagans also believe in the one, true, singular God. Seriously, the difference between Islam and paganism is what Muslims do NOT believe. Hence, Islam is naturally typified by strong disbeliefs.
From there, we can understand salafism as the list of the following:
* disbelief in taqlid/adherence to the four madhahib/schools-of-law, except for limited adherence to the Hanbali fiqh/jurisprudence
* staunch opposition to the use of kalam/speculative-philosophy
* in terms of rituals, rejection of idolatrous, popular "cult of saints", and shrine and tomb visitation
* possibly other disbeliefs, oppositions, and rejections, on grounds that these things constitute bid‘ah/extension to pure religion
On grounds of Occam's razor -- the lex parsimoniae -- I am generally favourable to rejecting every possible belief whenever that can be done without becoming inconsistent and/or contradictory. Hence, I agree with the Salafi strategy of disbelief, opposition, and rejection of whatever can be disbelieved, opposed, and rejected, short of becoming disloyal to the one, true, singular God.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Mustafa16
i also have some fiqh questions....do salafis believe you can not befriend non muslims? do salafis believe that trading on the stock market is haram? do salafis believe that non zabiha meat of ahl al kitab is allowed? do the majority of salafis believe in the niqab? etc. i basically just want to know about their fiqh and if they are on true guidance...
With Islam being an axiomatic system, generating the set of statements that can be derived from the Quran and its interpretation suggested in the Sunnah, the Salafi position seems to be that the existing fiqh/jurisprudence historically produced by the madhahib/schools-of-divine-law does not necessarily represent a proper derivation from the divine axiomatization but possibly has elements of liberal extension/bid‘ah, of the accredited axiomatic Islamic basis.
In that sense, the Salafi seem to desire to thoroughly conduct additional verifications of the historically-produced fiqh/jurisprudence, as to prevent such bid‘ah/extensions to Islam.
Since the Salafi process is actually quite valid, I believe that it makes sense to listen to their objections to practices that could indeed be understood as bid‘ah/extensions to Islam, and consequently, to reject those things, even if they happen to be already part of historically-transmitted fiqh/jurisprudence.