Haitham al-Haddad – Salafism or Islam?

Haitham al-Haddad
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The speakers discuss the definition of Salafism and its implications for one's beliefs, as well as the use of "rowning" for Islam. They also touch on the history behind the title "med strict" in Islam and the danger of attacking Islam with media's claims to be "AP" and "AP". The speakers stress the need for peaceful co union to avoid violence and assert one's European citizenship. They also mention the importance of asserting one's identity as a European citizens and not abandoning their values.

AI: Summary ©

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			Valera Rahim hamdulillah salat wa salam O Allah. mousseline Nabina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa
sahbihi wa seldom at the Sleeman kathira My bad, the respected brothers sisters, Solomonic anata wa
barakato. Dear colleagues,
		
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			Good evening. Good evening, I wish if I can speak in Dutch, but unfortunately, I can't speak and
that maybe in the future, the more you will come me here, here, the more I will be able to interact
with the Dutch people, and then I'll be able to inshallah, to speak in Dutch. In a matter of short
while we have a limited time. And we need to tackle a very important topic, which is Salafism, or
Islam. And I do apologize to the camera person, because I'll make his life difficult because I like
to keep moving. Yeah.
		
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			I wanted to speak in the beginning about my experience, my first experience with the Dutch people,
that goes back to 1996. And it was a very, very positive experience, actually. And I have to say
that it was my first visit to the west. And it forms. In fact, it changed my views about to the
west. At that time, it was my first visit to the west, and I was I did not have that much experience
about Western people, except to those Western people who come to work in Saudi Arabia, and I was
working with some Westerners there, but when I came to the west in 1996, in the first time, that was
maybe you can say that it was a cultural shock for me, and it amazes me how the West has changed.
		
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			After 911 the shift was so far, the the shift was so big, and that needs deep analysis, why this has
happened. Anyway, this is another subject that maybe we need to tackle sometime later, but let me
just tackle the main topic
		
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			that was given to me today, and inshallah, you have a very limited time and I'll try to tackle it in
the time that is given to me.
		
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			As you know, that unfortunately, Salafism has been receiving a lot of criticism,
		
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			in the media or by the media, in basically in the Netherlands, we are not experienced something like
this in, in Britain, maybe the brothers or the people in German, German, the German, they are, they
are experiencing something like this in Germany, but I think what people are experiencing here in
the Netherlands, it might be unique, for me, at least I haven't seen it in somewhere else in Europe,
why this needs to be a question that this needs to be analyzed.
		
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			And inshallah hopefully, it throughout the discussion in this conference, maybe an answer can be
identified. Now, what is Salafism?
		
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			See, there are so many definitions of Salafism and in fact, the biggest problem
		
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			of the media and some politicians when they not the media, all of them but some media outlets and
some politicians when they speak negatively or even positively about Salafism is they fail to give a
definition of Salafism
		
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			and I challenge them to give a proper definition of Salafism because they can't and those who are
qualified to give a definition about Salafism the academics for example, they themselves fail to
give a definition about Salafism. Does Salafism mean that you don't follow a particular school of
thought?
		
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			Does that mean this? Yeah, does Salafism mean
		
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			mean you believe in Jihad?
		
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			Does Salafism mean that you believe that Islam is the best way of life? What does it mean Really?
Does Salafism mean you have a pure
		
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			outlook for Islam and you want everyone to have this pure outlook for Islam?
		
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			Does it mean like this? Most of the people believe that Salafism is kind of that outlook that look
at Islam that Islam is the Pure religion and it should remain pure.
		
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			And we should purify Islam or from any kind of innovations or any kind of addition. And I think if
you look at it from an abstract point of view, this definition is a beautiful definition. Yes.
Because obviously, if we try to purify Islam from any kind of innovation from any kind of addition,
then we will go back to Islam, that is actually mercy to the entire mankind. And the Prophet
sallallahu wasallam was sent as a mercy for not only mankind but for all living beings. And Allah
confirm this in the Quran, Allah Allah Allah says Allah Azza Naka, Allah, Allah Allah mean, we have
sent you as a mercy for Al amin al amin includes incident includes human beings and includes even
		
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			non human beings.
		
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			Islam is a mercy for even for for the environment as well. Islam is mercy for Muslims and for non
Muslims. Islam is mercy for all human beings in this life and most importantly, in the life after
death. Now, so the point is, what is the definition of Salafism when they want to ban Salafism or
when they want to ban Salafi organizations or Salafi mosque or something like this? What is the
definition of Salafism? And once you go back to any definition of Salafism, that is acceptable by
even the scholars, the so called the scholars of Salafism such as even Tamia for example, or even to
Mohammed bin Abdullah hub or even to those colors before them. Mm hmm Mm hmm. Or even to Imam Abu
		
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			hanifa or Imam Malik or Imam Shafi, you will see that Salafism is nothing but Islam.
		
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			You will see that Salafism is nothing but Islam. What is Salafism is to take your rules from and
your guidelines from what? From Quran and Sunnah. Does any Muslim reject Quran and Sunnah in fact if
there is any Muslim who rejects Quran and Sunnah he is not any more Muslim agree or not? Yeah, I can
see them say I believe in Islam, but I don't believe in Quran or I believe in Islam, but I don't
believe in sooner.
		
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			Yeah, we say eyeshadow La ilaha illallah wa shadow Allah, Muhammad Rasulullah all of us go back to
Quran and Sunnah. All Muslims all over the world. Go back to Quran and Sunnah. Now, some academics
might say, well, the issue is the definitive that the interpretation of Quran and Sunnah. Yeah, so
at least, we say to those who say that the problem is the interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah we
say to them, at least let us agree that all Muslims believe in Quran and Sunnah and submit to Quran
and Sunnah. And they take Quran and Sunnah as their guidelines. Yeah. Now let us talk about the
second issue, which is their interpretation of Quran and Sunnah their interpretation of Quran and
		
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			Sunnah all Muslims in the world belong to
		
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			at least the Sunni Muslims to one of the four schools of thought, yeah, either hanafis or Maliki's
or Chavez or humbleness. Even, they say for example, even taymiyah. He doesn't follow another hub.
He sometimes takes from Imam Abu hanifa. Sometimes he takes it from him. Sometimes he takes it from
him, Amharic and so on. Sometimes he would take opinions that are not endorsed by the official
school of thought of Imam Abu hanifa Rahim Allah, for example, he might take the second opinion of
Imam Abu hanifa. He might take a third another opinion of not the official opinion of Imam Ahmed and
so on. At the end of the day, he is moving or maneuvering within the four schools of thought any
		
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			Muslim in the world will be referring to those schools of thoughts. Maybe you might find one scholar
here or there. He might have certain opinions in single massage and in single issues that go outside
the four schools of thoughts. Maybe in the issue of Pollock. Yeah, one opinion, maybe in the issue
of
		
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			another opinion, maybe regarding the issue of nyjah says something like this minor issues, but in
major issues. They don't go beyond the four schools of thoughts.
		
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			Yeah, and this is well known throughout history, ask any academic and they will confirm this. So
Salafism in reality, my dear brothers and sisters is going back to Quran and Sunnah in a very simple
form and go back to the four schools of thoughts. In reality Salafism is nothing but Islam. In
reality Salafism is nothing but Islam. Now within Muslims, yes we have certain
		
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			certain maybe you can say sect or certain groups. We say that anyone can claim that he is Muslim,
anyone, but we have a claim and we have reality. Anyone who believe anyone who believes in Quran and
Sunnah, so he is Muslim. Anyone who rejects Quran and Sunnah he is not Muslim. So we say if someone
he says that he is a Muslim, but he doesn't want to accept Quran and Sunnah he doesn't want to
accept Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam as the final messenger, we will say to him with all due respect,
okay, this is not Islam. In order to be a Muslim you need to submit to Quran and Sunnah. furusato if
he says yes, I want to refer to Quran and Sunnah, but I want to produce my own interpretation of
		
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			Quran and Sunnah. We say to him, that you are saying that the vast majority of Muslims are wrong.
		
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			They misunderstood Islam, and you are the only one who understood the Quran and Sunnah. And
obviously, this goes against common sense. Islam has been there for 1400 years. Yeah, Islam has been
practiced for the past 1400 years, Islam has been practiced by superpowers. Yeah, the healer for
Russia was a superpower. The after that the Mayan period was a superpower. The Romanian period, if
you know those who know history, it ruled maybe an area that is bigger than the Middle East, America
and Russia. If you want to calculate the area, that Romanian period cool, ruled for almost 100
years. Yeah, you want to calculate that area. It was bigger than the Middle East plus America and
		
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			Russia. That vast Okay, and it ruled that area, according to Islam, according to Quran and Sunnah.
Then after is the Romanian period, we have that bassy period continued for almost 500 years, it was
following the same pattern. Yeah. And it was a huge civilization. And it continues for 500 years and
one point it was the main civilization in the entire world.
		
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			Yeah. Then the abassi period or Dabashi Caliphate, yeah, the word Caliphate is bit sensitive. Yeah,
the abassi Caliphate fell down in 605, five in 656, which is after almost 650 years after the
Prophet sallallahu sallam, which means that for 600 years, it ruled this big area, with Quran and
Sunnah referring to one of the four modahaus. Yeah, in fact, for motherboard practice, they threw
out this big, huge civilization, then the Abbasid Caliphate came to an end, as we know, and then
after that, the Ottoman Caliphate is started. And again, it's ruled a huge area. At one point, it
was the main civilization in the entire world for almost 200 years. And then after that, for the
		
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			rest of 400 years, it was one of the main civilizations in the entire world. And there are those who
know about history. There are statements from Western academics that confirmed that was 10 M. non
Muslims, and general used to have good relationship with the Ottomans if they're used to send their
children to study in some Ottoman universities, they used to seek help from the Ottomans. In fact,
and historians confirm this, that once the the Jews and some Christians were persecuted in Spain,
they fled to who, to the Ottoman Empire. We provided we Muslims provided Jewish people, and some
Christians shelter when they were persecuted by some Christians and who provided them with
		
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			With this, the Ottoman Caliphate, the Islamic State of the Ottomans. Yeah, the media is always
presenting a negative image of what of the Islamic State. Yeah, the word Islamic say is very
frightening. It means killing shopping the hands, etc, etc, or shopping the heads, etc, etc. Read
the history and see what the Ottoman Empire provided for the entire civilization. Okay, so and then
the Ottoman Empire ended in 1924, as we all know, so, throughout history, and throughout these huge
civilizations, Muslims were practicing what
		
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			Muslims were referring to Quran and Sunnah. And to one of those through four schools of thought,
maybe some scholars were, may be moving from one school of thought to another school of thought, or
sometimes they are adopting by the notion of each they had an opinion that maybe was not one of the
official four schools of thoughts and so on. But in general, there we're referring to Quran and
Sunnah. And those four schools of thoughts. Now we as Muslims, when we say that, well, this is our
Constitution, the Islamic constitution, Quran and Sunnah. And the interpretation is simple. We have
the forest school of thoughts, we are accused of being the barbaric salafists, or we are being
		
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			accused of the terrorist Salafist, or we are being accused of the extremists, Salafist, who are
maybe now, there are just extremist and non violent extremists, but after some time, by the conveyor
belt theory, they will become what they will become the terrorist Subhana Allah, we've been living
in.
		
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			We have built those civilizations that at once provided or in fact, at many times provided shelters
and help for Jewish people, Christian people, and then we are accused of being extremists who is
going to turn to be terrorists. This is an over simplistic view of Islam and what Islam can provide
for humanity. Obviously, obviously, the notion of jihad will come obviously, any nation that sees
itself as a great nation, it will not be accepted, it will not accept at any cost to be demonized.
It will not accept at any cost to be slaughtered and just Just wait.
		
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			It doesn't accept or it will never accept to wait until it is a slaughter it will never accept to be
undermined. Obviously, they will defend themselves, whether they defend themselves and that the
notion of jihad or whether they defend themselves under any notion, it is a natural human being
reaction that once you are attacked, to be what to defend yourself to defend your honor. This is
something this is something well known and all the human beings will do that it is a natural
reaction as we have said, Okay, so, my dear brothers and sisters, this is Salafism. This is
Salafism. And this means that every single Muslim in reality he is a selfie as far as he believed,
		
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			as we said, In Quran and Sunnah and goes back to the former da hip as a matter of interpretation for
for an and sooner as simple as this. That's why I always challenge politicians, journalists by
giving me providing me with a pure, robust definition of Salafism and they end they fail to provide
such definition as simple as this, okay.
		
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			Now,
		
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			does that mean that the media is attacking Islam?
		
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			If we say that Salafism is nothing but Islam, does it mean that the media is attacking Islam or some
politicians are attacking Islam? Whether they say yes or no, in reality, they are attacking Islam.
		
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			Yeah, not all media outlets, but some politicians and some media outlets. They are attacking Islam
and what they need what they are doing, and we have to be aware of this tactic. Unfortunately, the
tactic that is used by some Islamophobic and right wing, whether media or politicians is they want
to divide us
		
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			Yeah, yeah, I'm not attacking Islam, I'm attacking who Salafist you are not a selfie? Yeah, but
their definition of Salafism is not like what many people perceive Salafism is. Are you following
this? Yeah, we as Muslims might have a detailed definition of Salafism? Yeah. But the media is not
attacking that the media is attacking anyone who wants to anyone who believes in Quran and Sunnah.
And they refer to those four schools of thoughts.
		
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			As simple as this, anyone who believes that for an answer are
		
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			the sacred words of Allah and His messenger.
		
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			If anyone who believes in the infallibility of Quran and Sunnah anyone who believes that the Koran
is a mercy to the entire mankind, in the huddle for Ana de la to hear from indeed this book guides
to that what is better anyone who believes in this ayah that for an answer now guides humanity to
the best practice, then he is Salafi, and he should be banned and he should be controlled? This is
how it is, this is what the media is presenting it, or sorry, this is the reality of what is the
media attacking. Although they are not presenting it like this, they are presenting it as if they
are attacking just part of the community. Not everyone, they are not attacking Islam, they welcome
		
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			Islam, they are happy with Islam, then we need to ask them a question, which is, okay, forget about
the definition of Salafism. Give us the definition of Islam. What does Islam mean? Unless you as a
non Muslim, you want to define for me what Islam is, you need to tell me how to pray, you need to
tell me how to make what do you need to tell me how to make how to get married? And you need to tell
me about these things. And I have to adapt to them. Because this is Islam. If that is the case, make
it clear that there Islam is defined by some politicians, some media outlets, and obviously,
obviously, this is not acceptable. Obviously, this is not acceptable. We have the definition of
		
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			Islam. That has been, as I said, practiced by hundreds,
		
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			by millions of people throughout hundreds of years. Okay. What is the danger of attacking Islam?
Although they don't say that they are attacking Islam, they are attacking Salafism? What is the
danger of that? This is very, very dangerous, my dear brothers and sisters, this is very, very
dangerous, because at the end of the day, in any society, there should be homogeneous and peaceful
coexistence between the components of the society. Yeah, even if they have a huge ideological
differences, they should have what peaceful coexistence? Yeah, and we Muslims should be and we are
open about that we should be more keen to have peaceful coexistence between the components of the
		
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			society as a whole. That's why we are vocal against anyone who carry any crime with our mass crime,
that is called terrorism, or a single crime, we are against that, because we are in favor of
peaceful coexistence between all components of the society, irrespective of or despite our major
ideological differences, despite the differences in our culture, and our cultures, despite our
differences as human beings, because as human beings don't expect us Yes, as human beings to live
with the same set of values. So why are we forced to accept values that are alien to our nature as
Muslims, you Muslims, you have to do this otherwise, you are not European, you Muslims have to do
		
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			this. Otherwise, you are extremists, you Muslims have to accept that otherwise, you are not welcome
in this country. And to conclude, my dear brothers and sisters, what is the future? Yeah, what is
the future, we have to say? We have to say that now Now
		
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			see, European countries, Europe in general. In fact, the whole world and in particular, Europe, is
in a dynamic state. So the definition of Europe is in a continuous, a change you
		
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			Maybe 50 years ago, was a white continent was a Christian continent. But now, you can't say that
Europe is a white continent. You can't say that Europe is a Christian continent. Can you say that?
No one says that anymore. So what is Europe? Europe is a continent for Christians, Muslims, Jews, no
faith, it is for all of us. So Europe has to adopt a new definition. That is what that is also
dynamic that suits those demographic changes that are taking place in Europe. You can't force
yourself upon me. You want me as a Muslim, not to force myself upon you. Yes, I agree. I am not
forcing myself upon you. But why are you forcing yourself on me?
		
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			This is the question. You have as a Muslim, you have to assimilate. And when I say why don't you
accept Islam optionally? Oh, no, you see, you as Muslims are forcing yourself upon Europe, you want
to take over, you want to change Europe, you want to do this and that and this and that you are
being extremist and then you will end up by being a terrorist, but it is allowed for you to say you
Muslim has to accept this has to do that has to abandon this has to give up your religion has to do
this. Otherwise, you are extremist? No, no, this continent, this country, for example, which is
Holland, is owned by all of us.
		
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			We are partners in this continent, in this country. I don't force myself on you. Yes, I debate my
views. Yeah, I'm vocal about my views. Be vocal about your views. We are all partners. I have to
deal with you as a partner. And you have to deal with me as what, as a partner. Yes, I am a
minority. Maybe now later, I might be a majority. You have to respect me and I have to respect you.
It is a mutual respect, mutual, peaceful coexistence. You don't ask me you don't treat me the
government's the European governments should not treat Muslims as visitors, they have to comply with
what with certain rules that are defined by certain people. No, we are European Muslims. We are
		
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			partners in Europe. As we said, I am not a visitor. I am a citizen. Here. You are European citizens.
My dear brothers and sisters don't accept to be treated as a visitor, who should just comply to the
norms that are forced upon him by the host. Netherlands is not a host for us. It is our country. It
is your country, as Dutch people, Britain is my country. I'm not going to Britain as a visitor, and
they should not expect from me to live there as a visitor and to assimilate why both of us as
Britain and the values of Britain has to take into consideration that we are partners in living in
Britain, we all define the values of Britain, we all define the values of Europe, the definition of
		
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			Europe has to be dynamic enough and has to accommodate the new demographic changes. If we don't to
do this, then that will be a serious problem not only for Muslims, but for the entire continent.
Because obviously, human beings by nature, they can't accept to be forced to abandon their values,
human beings by nature, they don't accept to be criminalized because of their values, that they have
been practiced for hundreds of years. This is the way forward as I see it, and it should be seen
like this.
		
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			That we need to assert our identity as Muslims, European Muslims. It doesn't mean that if you are a
Muslim, if you are a European, you should abandon your religion. No, no, no, no, no, we are European
Muslims. What does that mean? It doesn't mean that we have to abandon our values, our cultures in
order to fit in Europe. No, you
		
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			Europe has to fit. And has Europe has to accommodate all of us because because it is our continent,
European countries, our countries, as simple as this. This is the way forward insha Allah de como lo
hara Baraka lo fi calm was Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh