THE SALAFEE APPELLATIVE

The word, salafee and/or salafiyyah seems the most controversial appellative within the muslim folk today. While some, agitatedly, will not want it sounded to their ears, some do passionately and enthusiastically wish to be addressed as such. What a paradox! One man’s pleasure, another’s pressure; one person’s treasure, the other’s tremor. Hmm!

There is no doubt - even among those who notionally take exception to the tag - that the word, salaf means: predecessor, forebear, forefather, primogenitor, progenitor et cetera. Apparently, there is no one on earth without a predecessor(s). If you have any, you may help with his location. I will find him, even if it requires journeying miles on foot. It therefore means (lexically) that anyone who has predated or who had existed before the other person is a salaf. This implies that we will all become salaf, as some are salaf to us; or that as some are salaf to us, so we are to others.

If this reader could just read this piece with plain, sincere focus devoid of stereotype, sentiment and hate, he is likely to have his perturbed, perforated mind penetrated by truth.

Technically, a salaf is the one who has preceded one in Islamic faith. This automatically qualifies the holy Prophet as the first salaf. He was a salaf to the companions, who chronologically, were salaf to the ones after them down to this present generation of muslims.

So by the word, salafee – generated from the root, salaf, it simply signifies that one is an adherent of the salaf. It means that the bearer has based his life on the practice of the holy Prophet, the sahabah and other muslim forebears. And the derivative, salafiyyah, is just the act of being a salafee. The synopsis of this is that while a salafee is the muslim imitating the salaf (the predecessors), salafiyyah is the act of being a salafee (imitator of the predecessors). If this is not clear enough, you may take a cue from the word, ansaar, which lexically means helpers, but technically refers to the muslims who passionately welcomed and wholeheartedly accepted the muslims who sojourned from Makkah to Madeenah on account of the Prophet's adherence to Allah's divine order. Each of the ansaar to date is known as an ‘ansaaree’.

Identifying oneself as a salafee doesn’t erase the word, muslim – just as the word, ansaaree - never abrogated it back then. We are all muslims. It is just that while the one who flouts, disregards the sunnah of the holy Prophet (especially with guts and rationalisation) may still be a muslim, he is apparently not a salafee – a true submissivist, and adherent of the holy Prophet. In fact, even if the one who claims to be a salafee acts contrary to the dictates of the salaf (i.e. the Prophet and his companions), his self-ascription to salafiyyah is fake, albeit he remains a muslim.

What I see is that those who hate to hear or to be called salafees are mere rationalisers of the truth. They are people who wish to practise the religion based on whims and caprices. They are those who are selective of which to do and which not to do. They are those who have been carried away by the takes of the present rather than the spiritual practice of the past. They are those who are ready to jettison a tradition(s) of the Prophet for ephemeral, mundane phenomena. You know within you that you are guilty of one or all of the aforementioned.

You hate to be called a salafee, but you pride yourself as an awoist, a marxist et cetera. You had better check yourself!

It is worrying, however, that some persons who lay claim to salafiyyah are obviously not salafees. Rather, they are khalafees, for they contravene, violate the salaf. Some of them are attitudinally bankrupt because they lack the knowledge and manners with which the Prophet related with people. They know little or nothing about the sunnah. All they shallowly know of the sunnah are keeping beard and trousers above the ankles. This is where their salafiyyah starts and ends. Very unfortunate, lamentable and worrisome! As much as the aforementioned are part of the Prophet's sunnah (and whoever talks ill of them has lashed Allah's Messenger), Islam is much more than that. Acts that qualify one as a salafee abound, one of which is mannerliness.

The Prophet was a complete moralist; why will yours be different? He would address elders with warmth and respect; why are you not a respecter of your own elders? Why do you speak of and talk to them as though you were on the same pedestal? That isn't salafiyyah, but khalafiyyah.

Salafiyyah is beyond the appellative. The strength is not just in the name. It is about practice in consonance with the deeds of the noble Prophet.

Be a salafee (an upholder), not a khalafee (a dissuader).

Author: Kay Yusuf