Salafism Revisited: Some of You Lot Still Don’t Get It

[Update: Found a number of typos and missing symbols I missed the first few times going through the article. I’ve corrected them and uploaded an updated PDF. Because of the way WordPress’s media library works, the URL for the PDF has changed. If you have a direct link to it bookmarked, you’re going to have to update it. Apologies.]

Well, it’s taken me a while to get this done—just a little over two years, to be exact. This one’s a bit of a doozy too at 31 pages (32 if you include the cover), over double the length of its predecessor, Salafism, Do You Really Get It? An Actual Methodology or Merely Empty Slogans? As was the case when I first published Salafism, Do You Really Get It? in 2009, I’m not quite sure how this article (or book as my wife and daughter jokingly call it) will be received. About a decade and a half has gone by since the first installment, a heck of a lot has gone on since then. Sadly, however, a lot of things still remain the same, albeit with a different cast of actors and strangely, on a much larger stage (a lot of what was witnessed and experienced mainly among Salafis in the late 1990s and early 2000s is now being seen throughout Western culture, both Muslim and non-Muslim, e.g., extreme partisanship and division, outrage culture, cancel culture, etc.). As the old adage goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Update on New Article

Just wanted to post a quick update on the article I’ve been working on for the past year and a half. I’m practically done (I think). I’m waiting on a book to be delievered (which should arrive in the coming days) that I ordered from the US; I just wanted to double check on some quotes I’ve used. I’ve also just got to write up a conclusion to wrap everything up, but aside from that, I think it’s pretty much complete. I’m planning on sending it to a few friends to look over and double check, and if everything’s ok, it’ll be published here.

With the chaos going on over in Gaza, it’s been pretty hard to find the desire to continue, let alone focus on the last little bits I need to finish. My heart aches at the devastation and carnage we’re witnessing real time over social media. Please, for those of you few who do visit here, if you aren’t already, please keep our brothers and sisters over there in your supplications. Beg Allah to have mercy on them, to protect and preserve their living, to have mercy and forgive their dead and martyred while in prostration, in the final sitting of your prayer, and if you’re able, include qunut an-nazilah in all your prayers, obligatory and voluntary.

#FreePalestine.

EDIT (Oct. 22, 2023): Book’s arrived.

So … yeah … .

Not sure how many people who visit here are still waiting on the new article I said I’ve been working on, but looks like it’s going to be a little while longer before I’m done. I guess I got ahead of myself in thinking I’d be done after finishing the section I was working on the last time I posted. The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt I should touch on a couple other things that I had made mention of earlier in the paper. So, looks like it’ll be a bit while longer before I’m done. Apologies for those who were anticipating it. Please, forgive me.

I’m currently going through this stack of books, fishing for the quotes I have in mind that I might need. After I collect them and have them translated, hopefully, with Allah’s permission, this should be the last bit of the paper, but who knows? In any case, that’s the update. Still plugging away. Hopefully, it’ll be done and posted soon, insha’allah.

New Article On Its Way

Preparing for the home stretch.

It’s been a long, long while since I wrote anything substantial at all (with the exception of my last blog post, of course), let alone an original article intended for my blog. Over the past year or so, I’ve been working on a follow up to my article Salafism, Do You Really Get It? An Actual Methodology or Merely Empty Slogans? It’s been pretty slow going—actually, who’m I kidding? It’s been incredibly slow going. There are a ton of reasons for that, the main one being I’m lazy as heck. Not having my own, adequately spec’d PC to work on is another huge factor (my personal PC on my desk is near two decades old and runs on Windows XP! LOL).

In any case, thoughts for this follow up began around October of last year (2021) and I’ve been working on it on and off from then until now. The image above is of the books I have set aside in preparing for what I hope to be the last section of the article. I’ve got the pages I need statements from marked off. I just have to translate the relevant passages and tie everything together. I hope and pray I’m able to finish it relatively soon and not take another few months to do so, lol. But yeah, that’s all this blog post is really for: to update whoever still visits on what I’m working on and to expect this follow up, which honestly should have been written years ago. For those curious about the title, I’ve tenatively named it: Salafism Revisited: Some of You Lot Still Don’t Get It. Any how, I hope and pray you are all doing well. Hope this news puts a smile on your faces. Adiós for now!

Imam Ibn Kathîr on Naming Allah’s Name On What You Eat

(PDF Version)

Allah, exalted is He, said, «And do not eat from what Allah’s name was not mentioned on, and surely it is truly a sin» (6:121).

[Those] who opined that the slaughtered animal is not lawful if Allah’s name is not mentioned upon it, even if the slaughterer were a Muslim, acted according to this noble verse. The imams, may Allah have mercy on them, have differed in this issue according to three statements. From them are [those] who said this slaughtered animal, with this description, is not lawful; leaving the naming [of Allah’s name] intentionally or absent-mindedly is the same. It is narrated from Ibn ‘Umar and Nâfi’, his freed slave, ‘Âmir ash-Sha’bî and Muhammad bin Sîrîn. It is a narration from Imam Mâlik and a narration from Ahmad bin Hanbal [that] a group of his earlier and latter companions aided. It is Abî Thawr and Dâwud adh–Dhâhirî’s preference and Abul-Futūh Muhammad bin Muhammad bin ‘Alî at–Tâ’î, from the latter Shâfi’îs, preferred that in his book, al-Arba’în.

Ignorance, Dishonesty, or Both?

A Reply to the Christian Polemic Mary the Mother of Jesus: A Houri in Paradise?

(PDF Version)

The praise is for Allah, and it is sufficed. May peace be upon His slaves who He has chosen. As for what follows …

After painting a sexually explicit picture for his Christian readers with a long introduction in which he describes the Hūrîs of Paradise, their physical features, and other sexually oriented details pertaining to the pleasures of the Hereafter, this Christian polemicist presents his prized piece of evidence for his attack on Prophet Muhammad (may Allah send salutations and peace upon him), Mary the Mother of Jesus: A Houri in Paradise?: a (clipped) quote taken from Ibn Kathîr’s Qisas al-Anbiyâ’ which states,

“The Messenger of God … said, ‘God MARRIED ME IN PARADISE TO MARY THE DAUGHTER OF ‘IMRAN and to the wife of Pharaoh and the sister of Moses.’ (Tabarani)” (Ibn Kathir, Qisas al-Anbiya [Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, 1968/1388], p. 381- as cited in Aliah Schleifer’s Mary The Blessed Virgin of Islam [Fons Vitae; ISBN: 1887752021; July 1, 1998], p. 64; bold and capital emphasis [the writer’s]).