Recordings › Reply to Sunni (Wahhabi) Defence Pt.I -Mufti Abu Layth · 21 Feb 2018 › Segment 4 of 11
How does he view the Salafi movement, and is hadith narrator criticism a divine science?
salat salaah namaz prayer salaat namaaz as-salah salawat aqidah aqeedah aqida theology aqeeda aqaid fiqh fiqah fikh hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith saheeh sahih hadith saheeh hadith sound hadith authentic al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari imaam imams prayer leader hambali hanbalite hanbali school muftis dalil daleel adillah adilla proof rawi raawi ruwat jarh wa ta'dil jarh wa ta'deel al-jarh wa al-ta'dil al-jarh wa'l-ta'dil asharis ashaira asha'irah ashariyyah ash'arite maturidis maturidiyyah maturidite ahl al-sunnah ahl as-sunnah ahlus sunnah ahl al-sunna sunnis salafism wahhabi wahabi wahhabism umma ummat communityThe Salafi movement from iconoclasm to dogmatism; narrator criticism is a human science
Play from 10:29
The video loads from YouTube only when you press play. Click a time in the transcript to seek.
Watch this part
Open on YouTube at 10:29The player starts at 10:29, the beginning of this part.
This segment10:29 to 14:23 · 3 min 54 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenThe Salafi movement began as a courageous rejection of tradition but, once established, became as dogmatic as what it opposed. Narrator criticism is a human science, so it is always open to revision and disagreement.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says the Salafi movement rose on a sympathetic appeal: do not follow tradition or numbers, look at the evidence, be objective. He says he personally respected the courage of this iconoclastic beginning. He describes how, in his account, the movement rejected the four Sunni schools and made up its own positions, then went against the almost universal Ash'ari and Maturidi creed of the Ummah in favour of a literalist Hanbali creed, dismissing figures such as Ibn Hajar, Ibn al-Salah [?] and al-Nawawi [?] with 'it doesn't matter, we go with evidence'. Once established, he says, they resorted to the same dogmatic numbers game and became the oppressor they rose against, as revolutionary movements through history have done; the Salafis, he says, have become the Frankenstein they warned against. He then makes a short further point: the science of narrator criticism (ilm al-rijal) is not divine but man-made, since everyone knows the critique of chains comes through men, so it is always open to improvement, disagreement and different later opinions.
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the Salafi movement, having begun as a courageous iconoclastic rejection of tradition, became as dogmatic as what it opposed once established, and that narrator criticism (ilm al-rijal) is a human science open to revision and disagreement rather than a divine one.
“it is not a divine science it is something that men have come up with”
Category: method
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine10:29 to 14:23 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
them right they go about kind of arguing against me about me criticizing these chains and I want to say here these people I assume them to be seller fees I could be wrong but this whole Salafi movement yeah the seller fees rose on the back of this sympathy you see of like that you see of trying to say don't look at tradish don't look at numbers it's not a numbers game it's the truth try to use try to look at the evidence try to be objective that you know they cried these claims
for years they were the Salafi movement began as an iconoclastic movement it rejected tradition yeah Annie I personally respected that about the seller fees that they had this the courage to to rise against the masses and to question things I personally respect that because it takes a lot of courage to do that then what do you know no sooner do they become an established like so first of all they rejected the four schools of
sunni jurisprudence and completely made up their own things then they went even further the mainstream entire Muslim Ummah almost believed in a certain belief like whether they were a shoddy matadv stuff like this they went against them and adopted this humbly Ikeda this kind of literalist dogmatic views in creed they went against everybody you told them oh but what about even the hogr have said oh it doesn't matter what about even a Salah no no it doesn't matter what about Imam no we owe it
doesn't matter what about all these my oh it doesn't matter what about it doesn't matter we have to go with evidence we have to go with objectivity we have to go with and no sooner do they become an established kind of group that they themselves readers resort to that same kind of dogmatic numbers game so they become the kind of oppressor that they try to rise against this is this is just typical of any easy you see these movements that try to remove despotic kind of tyrants
eventually the people that take over just become dead despots and tyrants themselves this is like history repeatedly shows us this so the seller fees who began with these sympathies today have just become the same thing themselves they've become the very frankenstein that they tried to warn against so it's it's shocking - okay now my next point is Elmore Rijal this science of arrived we've gotta start abdur-rahman Murphy in the house
Aloha Savin instead a Louis Arlen right now these this Elm original is the science of critiquing people in these chains our first point is did this come from God is this divine or is this man-made if it is from alanis messenger which it isn't everybody knows that the critiquing the chains of asani comes through men then in that case it will always be susceptible to susceptible to to improvement you can always work on it
people can always disagree on it the people that come later can have different opinions on it is not a divine science it is something that men have come up with then I want to add another point and this is important they say oh he critiqued things like Bihari and stuff like this well you see albani criticized Bihari alberni okay criticized several hadith in Bukhari probably just close to a dozen or so and clasp them as weak and rejected them amongst them the hadith of if not a bus which is in sahih hain
Paragraphs overlapping 10:29 to 14:23. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2018-02-21-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8u9-aslyrze/s/4/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, February 21). How does he view the Salafi movement, and is hadith narrator criticism a divine science? [Video, segment 2018-02-21-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8u9-aslyrze/s/4/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "How does he view the Salafi movement, and is hadith narrator criticism a divine science?" Video, segment 2018-02-21-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded February 21, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8u9-aslyrze/s/4/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-02-21-S04, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{How does he view the Salafi movement, and is hadith narrator criticism a divine science?}}, year = {2018}, month = {2}, date = {2018-02-21}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8u9-aslyrze/s/4/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8u9-aslyrze/s/4/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-02-21-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.