Is Salafiyyah A Group Just Like The Other Groups Active In Our Times? Therefore Should It Be Treated The Same As The Rest? Answer: Shaikh Salih Al-Fawzan.

Question no. 110: Some people claim that Salafiyyah is a group (jamā’ah) like the other groups active in the arena of daʿwah. Therefore, the ruling upon it is the same as the other groups. What is your assessment of this claim?

Ash-Shaikh Al-ʿAllāmah Sālih Al-Fawzān answered: “Al-Jamāʿah As-Salafiyyah is the Jamāʿah that is upon the Truth. This is the Jamāʿah that it is obligatory to be associated with, to work with and to ascribe oneself to. As for the jamā’āt [or groups] besides this, then they are not considered as jamāʿāt of daʿwah because they are opposers – except for those who are affiliated to this Jamāʿah As-Salafiyyah.

If they continue to oppose, then we do not follow them – how can we follow a sect that opposes the jamāʿah of Ahlus-Sunnah and the guidance of the Salaf As-Sālih?! So whoever opposes the Salafi Jamāʿah is an opposer of the Manhaj (Methodology) of Allah’s Messenger (salallāhu ʿalaihi wasallam) and his Companions.

As for the statement of the one who says: ‘The Salafi Jamāʿah is just one group from the rest of the Islamic groups’ – then he is wrong. That is because the Salafi Jamāʿah is the only jamāʿah one is obligated to follow, to traverse its Methodology, to be united with, and to strive alongside.

Salafiyyah is the foundational and original jamāʿah – and the other groups are merely jamāʿahs by title, each one making for itself its own methodology. Therefore, it is not permissible to associate oneself with any of them other than the Jamāʿah As-Salafiyyah, because they (the others) are opposers.

Would anyone be pleased that he should associate himself with opposers?! A Muslim would not be pleased with that. The Messenger (salallāhu ʿalaihi wasallam) said: ‘Cling to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs after me.’ (Abu Dawood, no. 4607, At-Tirmidhi no. 2676, Ibn Mājah no. 42, Ahmad no. 17142, saheeh). And he (salallāhu ʿalaihi wasallam) said about the Saved Sect (Al-Firqat An-Nājiyah): ‘Those who are upon that which I and my Companions are upon.’ (At-Tirmidhi no. 2641, Al-Hākim no. 444, At-Tabarāni in Al-Kabeer no. 129.)

Does a person wish for salvation while he traverses other than its path? ‘You hope for salvation but you do not tread its path – indeed a ship does not sail upon dry land’.”

(Reference: al-Ajwibah al-Mufīdah ʿan As’ilah al-Manāhij al-Jadīdah, pp. 184-185)