The Response to Those Who Say That Salafism Is a Salafi Stage of Mubarak That Has Passed and Ended

The questioner : In the name of Allah, and may prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah. As for what follows, we continue with our Shaykh, Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, with some questions that concern our brothers in many countries. There are some writers who say that Salafism is a Salafi stage of Mubarak that has passed and ended, and that the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) did not have a regulated scientific methodology in receiving and deriving evidence, because they were people of asceticism, whereas the Khalaf are the ones who have that. So what is the response of our Shaykh (may Allah preserve him) to this lie?

The Shaykh : Allah is the Greatest. I say, after praising Allah, we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the badness of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, there is no one who can misguide him, and whomsoever He misguides, there is no one who can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger.
In my criticism and in my opinion, the absurdity of this question is that it is exactly like saying that we do not need to study the sciences that the Companions did not study. Some of these sciences are religious, and some lead to what the Shari'ah desires. For example, they might say, "We do not need to study the principles of jurisprudence, and we do not need to study the principles of hadith, and consequently, we do not need to study the religious and jurisprudential rulings that branch out from these two sciences." Why? Because the Companions did not study any of what we are studying today. Similarly, it is said that we do not need to study or discuss what is known among scholars, especially in the past, as the auxiliary sciences, such as grammar, morphology, rhetoric, and eloquence, and the like. Who says this? The Companions did not study these things because they were, at that time, in no need of any of these sciences. As for the language, they were the origin of the language and the people of the language, and the Noble Qur'an was revealed in their language. They received the Shari'ah directly from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), so they were not in need at that time of establishing a science called grammar or morphology, let alone the other sciences that resulted after them, as we mentioned earlier, such as the terminology of hadith and the terminology of the principles of jurisprudence. This is from one aspect. From another aspect, the Companions preceded us and were among the foremost in Islam. They deserved the abundant praise from Allah (Mighty and Majestic) for them, as mentioned in the Book or in the Sunnah. Among what concerns us in our statement here is that we were commanded to follow their example, just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was commanded to follow the example of the prophets and messengers before him, and he is the seal of the prophets and messengers. So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded us to follow the example of his Companions (peace and blessings be upon him). This is a ruling that we can look at as an answer to that question. It is a new ruling that does not bind the Companions, but it binds those who came after them, and especially us, the Khalaf, between whom and them are these long, extended centuries. If our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says to His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), then the Prophet has commanded us to follow these Salaf, the Companions and the three generations about whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) praised them in the authentic, indeed mass-transmitted hadith. And as we have mentioned more than once, especially in some previous answers, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says in the Noble Qur'an, This is a direct address to the Messenger to those who were in his lifetime (peace and blessings be upon him). Then the address turns to those who come after him in His saying (Mighty and Majestic), from those who were in his lifetime (peace and blessings be upon him) or those who come after them, and then they contradict the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). And this is not all; they also contradict the path of the first believers. The first believers are these people of the three generations whom we mentioned earlier in the authentic hadith. If we, the Khalaf, have rulings that fall upon us that did not fall upon the first Salaf, who are the Companions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), for that reason, he described the saved group as being those who This is not for the sake of the Companions, but for the sake of those who come after the Companions. So this question, in reality, contains a serious ignorance of the rules and principles explicitly stated in the Noble Qur'an and the authentic Sunnah when they say what I mentioned in this question. For this reason, we make it obligatory for every Muslim not to limit his understanding of his Islam, if he is a scholar, to the Qur'an and Sunnah only. Rather, he must also study what the Companions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the people of the generations attested to as the best were upon, in their understanding of the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, so that we do not fall into the warning of His saying (Exalted is He), and so that we do not become a group from those misguided groups, each of which claims to be upon the Book and the Sunnah, but they do not follow the righteous Salaf. As for those who directed this question, I understand that it is evident from their question that they do not care at all about such a verse and those hadiths that command us to return to what the first Salaf were upon, and they are the first to fall under the generality of His saying (Exalted is He), This is what I have as an answer to this question.