Lately the word salafi and its derivatives have been surfacing in many of the conversations i have with my friends and colleagues, whenever I use the word I'm usually confronted by one of the people who believe that they are salafi and i get side tracked trying to explain what i really mean when I use that term.
The broadest official definition of Salafi is "a person who believes in the first generation of Islam, and follows the fatwas generated during that time", according to this definition most if not all Muslims are Salafis. Acting upon these fatwas differs from one Safali to another the important thing is believing in them. There aren't certain agenda or certain criteria other than the mentioned to qualify you to become a Salafi. In other words, if you want to become a Salafi, all you need to do is to say that you are one. The expression is a relatively new one, I don't think the word Salafi was being used in that context 50 years ago.
Certain Muslim Scholars were defined as Salafis, these scholar don't all agree on the same things, since being a Salafi isn't that well defined, and at times they even have totally different point of views on the same things, what they all have in common though is the beard and a dedicated fan base. A dedicated fan base that'd follow every word they say without bothering to think it over, they don't even accept talking about it always using the excuse that to be able to argue with such a scholar you have to reach his same level of knowledge, even if this topic has a none religious nature, thus introducing the concept of priesthood "kohnoot" into Islam.
These days and in most conversations i go in, the term Salafi gets used to describe a certain niche of Salafis, a subset of them that maybe even be a minority, these people use the strictest explanation of any Fatwa willingly choosing to follow the script rather than understanding it, perhaps because they don't believe they have the capacity to think for themselves or maybe because they really can't think, either way, they follow what they read/hear blindly. Most of them are undereducated, as they choose not to read anything other than religious books, recent ones written by scholars that classify themselves as Salafi, usually they don't read the classics and if they do they interpret it in the light of what their modern Salafi scholars told them is right, again without thinking. Most though don't read, choosing to hear prerecorded lessons rather than read them, as they aren't that accustomed to reading and would always prefer hearing to reading, you can easily tell that by the way they write (tweet/blog/comment), my main problem with this niche is that they are so accustomed to not thinking that they always end up getting pranked by all the anti-islam forces roaming the Internet, every once a while they get fooled into believing in a poorly photoshoped photo or a fairy tale that no sane person can believe, anyway if you are trying to make Islam look backwards and stupid these guys are the people you should go for.
Most of the people who fall under this niche are usually sexually frustrated, as a result they are obsessed with sex and girls, just as obsessed as the perverts roaming our streets, as a result they spend a lot of their time thinking about sexual related issues, just going through any one of these forums you can see that clearly, they are obsessed with thinking/talking about it since they aren't doing it.
Islam became popular because of its flexibility, I'm a proud Muslim, but my Islam isn't the Islam they are talking about, I recall seeing a video by abu is'hak al hawainy stating that any girl that goes to university is sinner and he said it three times (
vid1), he also prohibited law school because they use none sharia laws(
vid2), these inflexible views serve nothing but alienate people from Islam and its true flexible nature. But to be fair some scholars are more flexible than others for instance Hussain Yaakoob allowed working in a company that has women working in it, however he clearly stated "a woman is a timed bomb, if she speaks to you don't speak back to her even at work" (
vid 3), I'm a strong believer in freedom of speech however this is hate speech, instigating his followers to hate women for tempting them, this is definitely not the Islam i signed up for.
The most famous example of a group of people who followed the Salafism i'm talking about here is Taliban, they followed it blindly driving their country off the cliff. Upon assuming control over
Mazar-I-Sharif city they prohibited women from working all together, completely ignoring the fact that the elementary education/health care systems were built upon female workers, also they ignored the fact that due to the country's perpetual war many families are supported by women, since most of the men died in one war or another. They then went on and prohibited treating women in general hospital the fact that they only had 1 women hospital in the whole city didn't stop them. Chess, Football, TV and kites were all deemed Haram as well.
Life is all about priorities and that niche of Salafis have them all mixed up, for them how they look takes precedence on how they act, how they interact have precedence on how they plan, and in general they believe in not believing and following whatever they are told is right by their scholars, regardless to whether it makes sense or not, that said I'm going to leave you with some questions left on ana salafy forum, the answers are irrelevant as i'm capturing what people are wondering about....(you can easily detect the sexual frustration undertone)
Priorities:
أنا طالب تخرجت في المعهد الأزهر في الأسكندرية و كي أكمل دراسة في كلية لا بد أن أسافر الى القاهرة و لا أعرف ما الأفضل لي,أبقى في الأسكندرية و أحضر دروس في المساجد أم أسافر الى القاهرة و أهتم بالكلية
أنا طبيبة أريد ستر عورات المسلمات فبلدي تفتقر الى الطبيبات النساء ولأستر عورات المسلمات سأظل أعمل حوالي أربع سنوات في جو من الاختلاط الى أن أن أترك العمل الحكومي وأفتح عيادة خاصة بعيدا عن الاختلاط فهل يحرم علي ذلك؛ وأيهما أولى ستر العورات أم ترك العمل وتجنب الاختلاط تماما؟
Inflexibility:
أنا معى ليسانس حقوق ....... هل يجوز لى العمل كمحامى ؟؟ فى ظل القانون الوضعى
Hate speech:
Huh?
عجبني انسه وكل ما أدعو في صلاتي تأتي علي بالي وصورتها امام عيني
ما حكم ركوب الفتاة للـ\"توك توك\" منفردة على أساس أنه مكان مفتوح؟
ما حكم التجارة في كروت الذاكرة (ميموري كارد) التي يتم وضعها في الهواتف المحمولة؟
قامت شركة جوجل بإرسال رسالة لي عن طريق البريد الإليكتروني محتواها أنني قد فزت بمبلغ معين حيث تم اختياري أكثر الأشخاص استخدامًا لموقع جوجل، وأنه سيتم إرسال المبلغ لي عن طريق حوالة مصرفية. فهل يجوز لي أخذ هذا المبلغ أم أتركه؟
ما حكم الاستفادة من دورات مدعمة في الكمبيوتر واللغات يقيمها حزب سياسي يحارب الإسلام؟ والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
.
ما حكم الرد على السلام المسجّل؟
ا حكم تصوير الأطفال بكاميرا التليفون المحمول أو بالكاميرا الديجيتال وتنقل على جهاز الكمبيوتر ولا تطبع ولا تعلق ؟