Who are the Salafis?

According to the "Salafi" ideology, a "Salafi" is someone who has special knowledge or ability to follow the beliefs of the Salaf above the mass Majority of common Muslims, they also include certain hand-picked scholars of later times.

Of course, this illusory definition is questioned by Sunni Muslims. Even the name of "Salafi" as understood by the "Salafi" movement, is rejected on the grounds that is is an innovated appellation which Ahl al-Sunnah have not used and which has appeared only a few decades ago

Where Ahl al-Sunnah further differ with "Salafis" is in the promotion of a handful of controversial scholars as supposedly representing all of Islamic scholarship after the time of the true Salaf. They praise and advertise these controversial scholars over and over the established, non-controversial Ahl al-Sunnah scholars of the intervening centuries.

These few scholars are:

- Ibn Taymiyya al-Harrani & his student Ibn al-Qayyim

- Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab & his Najdi epigones

- Bin Baz, Uthaymin, Albani & their propagandists

The Sunnis disagree with the above because neither do these belong to the time of the Salaf, nor are they considered representatives of the beliefs and practices of the Salaf, nor are they considered foremost authorities by Ahl al-Sunnah. In fact the condemnation of the first three by many scholars is well-known, as are the innovations and blunders of the latter.

The most diminutive proof that "Salafis" are the most distant of people from the Pious Salaf lies in the following fiver fundamental aspects of the Salafi ideology:

- Anthropomorphism of God's attributes: affirming a place, direction and corporeal limbs to God who is far exalted above all those;

- Disrespect of the Prophet Muhammad;

- An amateurish, egalitarian approach to the Quran & Hadith (no need for scholars or mastery of Arabic or Ijaza - traditional accreditation, or the Islamic sciences);

- Hatred for the Four Sunni Schools of Law (The 4 Madhabs), the two schools of doctrine (Asharis and Maturidis), and all the schools of self-purification (Tasawwuf - Sufism);

- The practice of Takfir: Declaring other Muslims unbelievers