The Legitimacy of Identifying with the Salaf.

The Shaykh : So, if we say, "We are Salafis," this is not an act of worship; rather, it is a description. It is like saying, "So-and-so is Syrian," "So-and-so is Jordanian," "So-and-so is such-and-such," and so on. This is not a religious innovation; it is an expression of the reality of this person in terms of what? His birth, and in terms of lineage, whether he is an Ansari, a Muhajir, and so on. When a Muslim identifies with a group, that identification may be rejected, or it may be acknowledged and known. It is rejected if it implies a meaning that contradicts the Shari'ah. This is what the majority of people have fallen into, and this is astonishing in a way. The one who identifies with a specific school of jurisprudence, whether in rulings, says, "I am a Hanafi," identifying with an imam; that one says, "I am a Maliki," identifying with another imam; and there is the Shafi'i and the Hanbali. All these identifications have been going on for approximately ten what? Centuries, and there is no objection to them. When, centuries ago, one emerged who propagated the school of the righteous Salaf and clarified for people, with evidence from the Book and the Sunnah—I mentioned to you a small portion of that evidence—that the matter is as the scholars, the investigators, say:
"And all good is in following those who came before, and all evil is in the innovation of those who came after."
When this name came to be used to link people to these people—namely, those who are attested to as the best in the authentic hadith—they said, "This name is a religious innovation, and identifying with the Salaf is a religious innovation." Fine; what do we do? They claim that we must say, "We are Muslims." Fine; the Muslims today include the Alawites, the Druze, and the Qadiyans. This is a new party and sect among the Muslims, and so on. So, when you say about yourself, "I am a Muslim," you have not defined yourself to your companion who asked you, "What is your school and what is your religion?" Muslim. The Muslims, by the text of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), divided into seventy-three sects, and reality testifies that they are like that or more than that. So, it is not sufficient to say, "You are a Muslim"; you must express your orientation. You may be a Sufi Muslim, you may be a Salafi Muslim, you may be a Hanafi Muslim, you may be a Khalfi, and so on. As long as these names are established and exist, and they express identifications that the identifiers themselves do not approve of—the imams themselves disavow fanaticism toward them; therefore, they ordered their followers to take the rulings of the Shari'ah from where they took them; that is, from the Book and the Sunnah.
So, identifying with the righteous Salaf is not like identifying with any person or any group in the entire Islamic world. For example—and no offense intended—if we say, the Tahrir Party identifies with a person, the Muslim Brotherhood identifies with a person, the Youth of Muhammad identifies with a person, the Tabligh group identifies with a person in India, and so on. But these people, however high they may rise in knowledge, action, and character, and so on, are individuals who are not protected from error. Glory be to Allah! All of this goes on without objection. But if I am a Salafi—meaning, I identify with the righteous Salaf, and I want to understand the Book and the Sunnah as they did, not as the Khalaf did—then this is a rejected matter. In reality, this is one of the calamities about which the reports warn that the Sunnah becomes a religious innovation and the religious innovation becomes the Sunnah, and what is right becomes wrong and what is wrong becomes right. For this reason, we say: It is incumbent upon every Muslim, first, not to be fanatical toward any of the imams of the Muslims, and to benefit from them all; because knowledge is not confined to one of them. This is first. Second, he must receive knowledge with the evidence of the Book and the Sunnah, and in accordance with the way of our righteous Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them) all.
Perhaps in this is a clear and sufficient answer, if Allah wills, to the question directed earlier.
We pray, and then we listen if there are any questions. Is there room for prayer or not?