What is the ruling on rebuking one who attributes himself to the Salaf by saying, “I am a Salafi,” and is the reasoning for the rebuke—that it constitutes self-praise—correct?

The questioner : O our Shaykh, some of the brothers on the good methodology prevent a man from using the term “Salafi” for himself because of the self-praise involved in it. What is your opinion on this?

The Shaykh : This is related to the question, “Are you a believer?” If this man—(laughs)The Shaykh : —is from the group that says, “No, I do not say ‘believer,’ I say ‘believer, if Allah wills.’” We would say, “I am a Salafi, if Allah wills,” but I do not think he would agree either. What is your opinion? Do you know him?

The questioner : I recall a statement by some of the Tabi'un (the generation after the Companions) when he was asked, “Are you a believer?”—and perhaps this will address a difficulty regarding the answer to the question—he said, “If you mean faith in contrast to disbelief, then I am a believer.”

The Shaykh : Ah.

The questioner : But if you mean whether I embody the characteristics mentioned in the description of the believers, I hope—

The Shaykh : —I hope, if Allah wills.
Al-Halabi : This is like that, O our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : That is it. Yes, this matter—I believe those who address this issue are, first of all, from one of the parties.

The questioner: HeThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-'Azim specifically wrote a paper or two: “Salafism as I Understand It.”

The Shaykh : Ah.

The questioner : It was as if the security authorities had asked him to write or explain to them what he meant by Salafism.

The Shaykh : Ah.

The questioner : He wrote a paper or two, and the last of his messages was, “This is what I said.”

The Shaykh : This is what was reported from him.

The questioner : Yes, this is what was reported from him.

The Shaykh : Yes, well, if this questioner or interrogator asked him, “Are you a Salafi?” What would his answer be?

The questioner : In my opinion, he would say yes.

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : In my opinion, he would say yes.

The Shaykh : So, did he praise himself? By definition, “So-and-so is a Salafi” now means, in terms of methodology, exactly as if one were asked, “Are you a Hanafi? Are you a Shafi'i? Are you...?” and so on. But that is one thing, and the other thing is, “Do you act in accordance with what your school, your party, or your Salafism requires of you?” Here, the answer would be given with caution.

The questioner : It is possible that it is one or the other.

Another questioner : O our Shaykh, regarding...

The Shaykh : But some people—and this is often heard, as they say, “If I forget, I will not forget”—I was at the Islamic University, in its early days, teaching a course in hadith and sometimes in the jurisprudence of hadith. There were some Muslim Brothers who confronted me with a rebuke, asking, “Why do you say we are Salafis?” I answered them first with a dialectical answer, which was in fact correct, and then with a scholarly answer. I said, “We say we are Salafis because you say you are Muslim Brothers. So drop that, and we will drop this. But even if you dropped it, we would not drop ours, of course, because attributing oneself to the Salaf is not a party affiliation that is prohibited; rather, it is what is commanded in the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He: The first to enter into this phrase, the modifier and the modified, “the path of the believers,” are the earliest Salaf. So if we attribute ourselves to them, no one can ever rebuke us for it. Rather, we say that one who disavows the like of the Muslim Brothers or the Tahrir Party and is truly a believer will remain truly a believer. But one who disavows the righteous Salaf and is truly a believer— the least that can be said is that if he has not exited faith, his faith has diminished. How vast is the difference between this attribution and that attribution! Nevertheless, we say, or we assume a hypothetical matter: when the Muslims return to being one ummah (the Muslim community) as they were before Allah sent Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) to the Arabs and saved them from the jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic age of ignorance) to tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and faith, and so on—when all the Muslims return to being believers and Muslims like this, we will not use a new term at all. But the reality is, as he (peace be upon him) said: to the end of the hadith, and that as it is in the hadith.