My Journey with Salafiyyah || Mohammed Hijab

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[Hoopfinesse]

Alhumdulillah I have not said “I am Salafi” ever since returning from my studies in Yemen 15 years ago. I’m so free and happy Alhumdulillah

[OmarAliYT.]

Wallahi as a young man growing up in the UK, Mohammed Hijab has helped me more than anyone in learning more about my deen. When I've been convinced by various sectarian groups his videos always bring me back to the middle ground. He makes mistakes and corrects himself as he learns, unlike the cultish behaviour we see from others. Nothing but respect, admiration and gratitude. May Allah swt bless you in the dunyah and akhira, ameen

[ilyass]

The journey of every ex-Salafi. Mine too. Was filled with sectarianism, ego, jealousy and feeling superior and looking down upon other people and scholars

[naimhussain]

I can't believe you're only 31. May Allah bless your rest of life on earth. Aameen.

[amunalamuna]

When I first started practicing Islam, my brother who is a strict Salafi-Madkhali, almost made me give up on Islam wallahi. Alhamdulillah once I left these Madkhali mindset, I started feel better and started to love Islam with my heart. I totally agree with brother Mohammad and I‘m glad that he’s pointing out these things.

[souhailserghine]

Pure gold from start to finish.. May Allah bless you brother Hijab

[BK_Beloved]

My Personal Journey with Salafiyaah and how/why I left (perhaps you can relate <3) :

I am a 2nd generation Hispanic Muslim who grew up in New York. Growing up, I felt that I was never 100% accepted by other brothers and other masjids. As a youth, this feels very important. Back then, masjids were built by ethnicity. Pakistanis build a masjid dominated with pakistanis. Africans built masjids that were dominated by africans, and the lists goes on, etc. The mixing of other ethnicities and cultures were a lot less back then compared to today. And when brothers first met me, they constantly doubted my islam out of complete ignorance and ask what the shahadah mean and what are the five pillars. This is because at that time they rarely heard of a Hispanic Muslim (which is on a rise today alhamdulilah). Growing up, this was very frustrating and disheartening. My belief in Allah and islam was firm by his mercy and I just wanted to be treated like a brother, just like how some muslims treated someone who was muslim from their own race.

Then one day, I went to a Salafi Masjid unknowingly to pray Salah. In the masjid, there were black american brothers, hispanic brothers, african brothers, arab brothers, pakistani brothers, bengali brothers, and albanian brothers. They treated each other like brothers and what bounded them together was their love of the Quran, Sunnah, and their interpretation of the understanding of the salaf (I will elaborate more on this later). I was thinking to myself 'wow, this is Islam when it is truly understood and practiced'. I was very moved by the lack of racism in the masjid and brotherhood. The prejudice and racism was almost non-existent. And in fact, there was a lot of interracial marriages which was a big no no for a lot of cultural muslims back then. Then one day I went to a class. The imam was reading The Three Fundamental Principles and I was inspired to seek knowledge and learn Islam with the proofs. Eventually, I became a regular member in the community and was known as always being in the duroos.

As time went on, I began to realize a lot of infighting. Brothers who were Salafi today were not Salafi the next week. This imam was on the sunnah, now he isn't anymore. This Sheikh was a caller to sunnah, now he is following his desires. I used to think to myself 'We are on the truth, why are we fighting so much?'. This question bothered me the whole time I was salafi. I didnt understand and I didn't have the answer. Brothers who left the community used to tell me, "Dont worry, one day you'll see for your own eyes'. I used to get really mad, "Give me the proof and evidence right now and I'll leave them!". But for some reason they never broke it down to me and sat me down. Allah knows best why but looking back I guess the wisdom was that I have to see for myself how fraudulent their ideology is.


Eventually, I began to see how crooked some of the imaams were. Some of the imaams were honey dipping. Honey dipping is when they marry a new convert, only to divorce after a month or few months of having their fun with her. Then they marry her to a close friend or other imaam. I also realized that many of the refutations were against childhood friends. Alot of these imaams were close friends growing up. Then overnight, one imam is a 'deviant, innovator'. The imaam that warns is accepted with administration. the one that was warned has to find a new community. I realized, its all about power and I left them al hamdu lilah.

Clear mistakes & inconsistencies of Salafis (in no particular order)
Quoting an imaam of the salaf and using it as an evidence in the religion: The imaams would say, " Sufyan AtThawri said!, Imaam Ahmed said!'. They would quote speech of some of the salaf as an evidence in the religion. The speech of the salaf is not evidence. This shows you their lack of Usool in the religion.

Declaring muslims innovators without conditions: This is very hypocritical because when it comes to Takfeer, they say, 'Takfeer has conditions! and is only for the scholars to delve into!'. Likewise is Decarling someone an innovator, it has conditions. But they cleary violate that to this day. Making Tabdee or Takfeer require conditions to be observed and a learned scholar makes that ruling. Not some imaam who can barely speak arabic, smh.

Hear and Obey the ruler (They only intend Saudi and the Emirates): When they shout obey the ruler and any disagreement with the kingdom makes you a kharaji LOL. There are so many holes with this. First of all, All the ahadith about obeying the ruler is for the Ameer who is in charge of the muslims as a whole. The classical scholars say this right is for the Khilaafah Ameer. They openly and boldly claim how they love Saudi but they will not say that about any other muslim country. Also, this approach is very different from the people of hadith. The people of hadith avoided the rulers and their palaces. Some of those rulers implement more Islam than Saudi and they were still averse to allying with them. So something is very off when you claiming the way of hadith and are completely opposite of them when it comes to interactions and views with the rulers. Side note, there is a hadith that praises the muslim who speaks against the evil of a tyrannical leader (they try their best to hide that hadith LOL).

Sorry I wrote so much! I could write more but thats enough! in sha Allah this benefist anyone who reads it.

[RFK_]

I am 70 years old, and have watched our religion here in America go from something very unknown to now something phobic. The religion is simple but the people in our religion complicate it in many ways and many times. Stick to the roots of the religion and please don't complicate it. Allah SWT knows best but I think he wants to make it easy on us, yet we are always complicating it and arguing sometimes with and without knowledge. Please be respectful of each other as an example for our brethren and those considering Islam. Love you all for the sake of Allah SWT.

[Sultan-grtk]

I come from a Hanafi background who grew up with classmates and teachers who were pseudo”Salafis”. I was a mere observer who didn’t join them but listened to them to learn what they say. Some of the things they said could be applied to some fringes of society but they were wrongly tying it to Taqleed of the 4 Imams of Madhahib and calling every deviant person a Muqallid and then all the Muqallideen as Mubtade.

I didn’t antagonize these pseudo”Salafi” movements until they started to work against the mainstream Muslims and even sided with secularists against the Muslims.
That’s when I understood this movement is a cancer for our Ummah. May Allah heal us all.

[Kimeikus]

Man, I relate to this soo much. It was never the main idea to follow the Qur’an and Sunnah and Salaf that was an issue. It was the arrogance, sectarianism, double standards, and allegiances which were were a huge turn off for me.

It‘s just really frustrating because they’ll just brush you off as someone who does not like the way of the Salaf as if the way of the Salaf entails that garbage behavior.

[usamaansari]

I always thought “salafism” as weird because to disparage 1000+ years of incredible, diverse classical Islamic scholarship for a small band of modern scholars is absolutely ridiculous

[MrSaifkamal]

I can totally relate to this. I used to be proud of being a "Salafi" for their pure Aqeedah but now after I have seen the dark side of these movements which has little to do with the Salaf but a lot more to do with their brand of Salafism, I no longer associate myself with this term. I'm a Muslim first and foremost Alhamdulillah.

[kamranabbasi]

Allah has put love for you in my heart. May Allah always guide you and keep you on guidance.

[StrivingBri]

subhanAllah, i want so badly to call myself salafi but this is EXACTLY why i hesitate and don’t, literally feel the exact same way, very well said Allahumma Barik

[n.a.]

I remember the website of bin Baz, where the majority of Sunni Muslims were labelled as innovators. And of course, the saudi 'scholars' were correct.

[FBentla]

You've just crushed it man, I cannot agree more with everything you have said. Great video, keep up the good work, you're doing fantastic things for the religion of Islam.

[MissionIslam]

I had a friend who was a hardcore madkhali.. after studying in medina he came back and he was telling me that he was wrong about madkhali and that this path was wrong.

[ngocehgayabebas]

Congratulation to you bro. Indonesian muslim here. Salafi wahabi have become a problem here till now.

They make frictions within ummah

[baleck]

Islam is a very simple religion. There is a lot of arrogance with people who love to make tekfir over small difference of opinion. I belive in a merciful God, who made the true religion so simple that even an uneducated villager in 12th century will understand its message.

[Al_Neo]

Jazakallahu Khairan Brother Hijab. You really highlighted the Crux of the issue that not all but a significant portion of this so called 'Salafi' Movement has. They claim to have a desire or want to go back to the Salaf, the pious predecessors, yet their actions are ironically in direct contrast to their claims when they make their scholars infallible and anyone that disagrees with even a single opinion of their Sheikh is automatically considered a deviant by them. Whereas in the Muslim Ummah and even amongst the salafs disagreements have happened yet they remained fairly united and cordial towards each other and respected each other's opinions.

Same goes for their view on Taqleed, the criticize other for doing it yet they are the staunchest Muqliads around in reality, only changing the scholars they do Taqleed of.

May Allah guide all of us and unite us for his sake. May Allah make them understand that not everyone that disagrees with them is a deviant and let them understand that Islamic history and knowledge and literature is much more vast and diverse as opposed to what they take it as.