The Ruling on Identifying as a Salafi, and the Response to Those Who Deny It and Cite the Saying of the Exalted: “It is He who has named you Muslims.”

The Shaykh : ... Some of them say: Does it not suffice for us to identify by what our Lord of the worlds named us in His Noble Book, to say: We are Muslims, and that is enough?!
My answer to this objection is: It suffices, but when does it suffice? When all Muslims return to the Book and the Sunnah, just as our earliest predecessors (Salaf) were, and there are no longer schools of jurisprudence that continue to assert their existence and are adopted by millions of Muslims with their differing schools and inclinations. On the day when Muslims agree on this methodology of returning to the Book and the Sunnah and on the methodology of the righteous predecessors (Salaf), as we have said, then all names will be abandoned, not only “Salafi,” but before “Salafi,” the designations of Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, Zaydi, Shi'i, Ibadi, Khariji, Naqshbandi, and whatever other sects are known to you, and so on. On the day when Muslims agree to abandon all these names, the difference is very great between these names and the name “Salafi,” and this difference must be pointed out. From our previous explanation, a Salafi is one who identifies with the Salaf, and the Salaf is not an affiliation to a specific person, even if it were Abu Bakr, 'Umar, or 'Uthman, but rather it is for all the Salaf. Meanwhile, these other schools are affiliations to individuals. How vast is the difference between this affiliation and that affiliation! That Salafi affiliation is an attribution to infallibility, because the Messenger (peace be upon him) said: . Therefore, following what the righteous predecessors (Salaf) were upon is a matter of consensus and is protected from error. However, following the school of any of the imams of the Muslims, no matter how high his knowledge, character, righteousness, and asceticism may be, does not mean adhering to infallibility; for he errs and hits the mark, as we mentioned earlier regarding Imam al-Shafi'i: “There is no one but that a Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is hidden from him.” And so on.
The point is: As long as these names exist, and they indicate things that are not prescribed, such as partisanship for a person who is not infallible, as long as these names are present, we do not see any reason whatsoever to tolerate or compromise on identifying with the righteous predecessors (Salaf). And I do not say about myself that I am a Salafi because I was found in an era where one must identify with one of these schools.
Some people say: Say you are a Muslim. My brother, do not hold me to this, but your example is like that of the ostrich, that large bird which is cited as an example of foolishness. When it sees the hunter—they claim it is so—it puts its head in the sand, so it does not see the hunter, and in its foolishness it assumes that the hunter no longer sees it. It is as large as a mountain. The one who says to you, “Now say you are a Muslim,” is closing his eyes to the reality that exists today. If I say: I am a Muslim, he will ask me: Are you a Hanafi? Are you a Shafi'i? Are you such-and-such, such-and-such, such-and-such, and so on. Names that cannot be counted. So what do you say? If you insist on saying: I am only a Muslim, it means you have not declared your creed. It means the right and the wrong have been mixed up, and the truth and the falsehood have been mixed up, when you said about yourself only: I am a Muslim. Now, if a person says: I am a Muslim in terms of what? Religion. But there is no objection to attributing something else to clarify the reality, such as: I am a Syrian Muslim. What is wrong with that? I am a Syrian Muslim. What is the attribution? Syrian is a country I migrated to. I am an Albanian Muslim; meaning by birth. What is wrong with that? It is not a source of pride or anything, but it clarifies what? The reality. So if I say: I am a Salafi, meaning: I identify with acting upon the Book and the Sunnah according to the methodology of the righteous predecessors (Salaf), what is wrong with this except for pride, if it were permissible for a Muslim to take pride in such an identification?!