What is the difference between being called a Salafi and being called by the names of other groups, parties, and sects?

The questioner : The first question, my professor, is from a set of questions regarding affiliation with the methodology of the Salaf and the naming by this name, and the difference between this Shari'ah-based naming and affiliation with other existing names. The first question asks: What is the difference between being called a Salafi and being called by other names, such as groups and other parties? We want you, may Allah reward you, to distinguish for us between this naming and naming after other parties and calls.

The Shaykh : Without recording.

The questioner : Without me recording.

The Shaykh : The difference in our view is very clear, fundamental, and essential. We believe that Islamic groups do not adopt a scientific methodology that would lead those in charge of these groups to understand Islam correctly by returning to the agreed-upon scientific sources among Muslim scholars, and then to educate the group on this scientific methodology. I am not speaking now about the reality of the methodology they should have established their grouping and partisanship upon, because we distinguish between the call to the Book and the Sunnah, which is a necessity for every group that belongs to Islam, and our call, the call to the truth, which is based on the methodology of the Book and the Sunnah and on what the righteous Salaf were upon. I do not want to define now the methodology they should have been upon, but I say they have no methodology. Their grouping is not based on a methodology that even some Muslim scholars follow. For example, I imagine a people from the Muslim peoples who understand Islam according to the concept of one of the Imams of the Muslims, such as the Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, or Hanbali, and so on. These are known madhhab followers who worship Allah according to what is in this madhhab, and they are dispersed. Their affiliation, each group to a madhhab, is an affiliation to an Imam from among the Muslim scholars. Even if this does not please us, because we do not accept affiliation except to what the four Imams agreed upon from the Book and the Sunnah, with the previous detail. Today, Islamic groups do not establish or do not set up their call and grouping on a scientific methodology, even a madhhab-based one, even like any people from the Muslim peoples who may number in the thousands or in the millions. For example, the Turks, Albanians, and Yugoslavs among the Muslims worship Allah according to the madhhab of Abu Hanifah and do not know Islam except this madhhab. But Islamic groups, if only they were like these Muslim peoples, meaning they follow a scientific madhhab, even if limited, even if madhhab-based. So the difference between the Salafi call and the other calls existing today in the Islamic land is a difference between the sky and the earth. We are based on a methodology, they are not based on a methodology. This is first. Second: If there is among them someone who follows a methodology, this methodology is not the methodology of returning to the Book and the Sunnah. What methodology? Verifying a verse in the Noble Qur'an, which says: No group's methodology is based on this foundation. The evidence is that in any group among the groups existing today, you find the Hanafi, the Shafi'i, the Maliki, the Hanbali, the Salafi, the Sufi, the Shi'i, the Zaydi, and so on. Why? Because they call to Islam, and that is it. As for Islam according to the Book and the Sunnah, if only they did that, it would be fine. Now, in principle, and on the methodology of the righteous Salaf, Islam of the Book and the Sunnah. There is a word in the Syrian dialect that they adopt, the practice of "everyone is on their religion, may Allah help them." And better than this, if we raise our expression a little, there are some scholars who say, and some common people who thought it was a hadith, "Whoever follows a scholar will meet Allah in safety." This is a level slightly higher than that. "Everyone is on their religion, may Allah help them" is a lost pot, but here, "Whoever follows a scholar will meet Allah in safety."