Question:
May Allah reward you with goodness. A questioner asks: Virtuous Sheikh, what is the ruling on affiliating oneself with the Pious Predecessors (al-Salaf al-Salih) and our saying, ‘I am Salafi in creed’?
Answer:
Affiliating oneself with the Pious Predecessors (al-Salaf al-Salih) is obligatory, because the Pious Predecessors are those who were upon what the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was upon. As for a person’s saying, ‘I am Salafi’—if he intends by it to establish a faction (hizb) or to belong to a faction, then we oppose factions, and we hold the view that the Islamic nation must be a single faction upon the path of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his Companions.
But if he means ‘I am Salafi’ in the sense that ‘I follow the Salaf, and I do not intend to establish a faction by which I declare whoever opposes me to be misguided,’ then this is correct. All of us are Salafis; all of us ask Allah the Exalted to cause us to die upon the path of the Salaf—all of us ask Allah for that.
However, for us to establish a faction named ‘Salafi’, another faction named ‘Ikhwani’, another faction named ‘Tablighi’, and another faction named such-and-such—we do not approve of this; we do not approve of this. Was there any such factionalism among the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them)?
Answer me. No, we say no, and we say: whoever has a claim to the contrary, let him bring it forward. The Salaf of this nation never divided into factions; all of them were upon the path of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), following his tracks outwardly and inwardly—in creed, speech, and action. As for factionalism, we denounce it with the utmost denunciation, and we hold the view that the Islamic nation must be a single faction upon the methodology (manhaj) of whom? Upon the methodology of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his Companions.