Qaradawi Criticizes the Salafis

Apr 04

Al-Masry al-Youm (English) is reporting that Qaradawi has come out with strong criticisms of the Egyptian salafis.  Particularly important, I believe, is his criticism of their literalism in understanding Islamic texts and their opportunism in trying to exploit a revolution that they refused to participate in, and indeed, condemned as a kind of rebellion.  It is a bit ironic, now that the revolution has succeeded, that they see no obligation to obey the law, nor do they deem violent confrontation of those whom they condemn as engaging in immorality (taghyir al-munkar bi-l-yad) as rebellion, even though Islamic law condemns vigilantism as iftiyat.  Apparently, the salafis only seem to believe there is an obligation to obey the law of tyrants!

One comment

  1. Ghazalli /

    I love Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and I think he brings up a good point about Salafis. I think we should consider their violent confrontations with the general population as a type of hirabah. Imam Ibn al-Barr defines the agent of hirabah as “Anyone who disturbs free passage on the street and renders them unsafe to travel…” al-Kasani defines it the same way but he also calls it qat al-tariq and al-Nawawi states “whoever brandishes a weapon and terrorizes the street (akhafa al-sabil)….”

    All these jurists have a common theme which is that hirabah is distinguished by the spreading of fear (ikhafah).

    Outside of Cairo this movement in causing a lot of problems especially in Aswan and Asyut.

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