بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ، وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَبَعْد

One of the most striking, and clearly ironic features of modern-day Salafi street culture is its loud, almost obsessive anti‑madhhab rhetoric. Spend ten minutes around a newly minted Salafi convert and you’ll hear the same slogans: “We don’t follow madhhabs. “We follow the Qur’an and Sunnah directly.” “Madhhabs cause division.” “Blind following is haram.” Yet here’s the paradox: Nearly every scholar they quote, revere, or build their identity around follows a madhhab. Not “kind of.”  Not “sometimes.” Not “when convenient.” They follow madhhabs in the classical, juristic sense, with training, methodology, and legal lineage. 

The Salafi Hall of Fame were All Madhhab Men. The very scholars Salafis hold up as the gold standard of “pure” Islam were themselves products of the madhhab tradition: 

Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah originally studied under the Hanbali school of thought, one of the main traditions in Islamic law. His father and uncle were prominent Hanbali scholars and judges in their hometown of Harran (in modern-day Turkey) and later in Damascus (in modern-day Syria). He is still viewed as an important figure in the madhhab. However, he didn’t stick to it rigidly. Instead of just following established rulings, he often preferred to do his own reasoning directly from the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad. He respected the major schools of thought but rejected the idea of blindly following any of them, and he regularly argued that what mattered most was following the strongest evidence. Which is in my opinion, a sound, and credible argument, especially for a scholar of his caliber, but not for a new convert to Islam who has barely fasted 5 Ramadans. Still, in Ibn Taymiyya’s 23 volumes of fatwa which is in print, he refers to madhhab-based fiqh decisions hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. 

Ibn al‑Qayyim was a renowned scholar of the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence also and a favorite amongst modern-day Salafis. His relationship with the Hanbali school was unique as well. While he was a follower of the Hanbali madhhab, his extensive knowledge allowed him to go beyond simply adhering to its established positions. He often evaluated different scholarly opinions and prioritized what he believed to be the strongest evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah, even if it meant departing from the well-known view of the Hanbali school. 

Many of the great scholars of Islam, although they followed a madhab, were not fanatically attached tIbn Kathir’s monumental reputation rests on his work in tafsir (Qur’anic exegesis) and hadith. His methodology in his famous Tafsir Ibn Kathir is explicitly source-based. In matters of Islamic law (fiqh), his default position was often the Shafi’i madhhab. He was educated by leading Shafi’i scholars of his time, like Ibn Taymiyyah’s student, al-Mizzi, and the renowned Shafi’i jurist, Jamal al-Din al-Isfahani. His legal rulings, when no strong evidence compelled him otherwise, would align with Shafi’i principles. Following the strong influence of his main teacher, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Kathir frequently prioritized authentic hadith over the stated position of his school. If a hadith was sahih (authentic) and clear, and it contradicted a Shafi’i opinion, he would side with the hadith.  

When the esteemed scholar, Shaykh Abdul Aziz bin Baz who is considered a Salafi superstar, served as a judge in the Saudi courts and later as Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, he primarily and officially adhered to the Hanbali madhhab in his rulings. However, like Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Rajab, Ibn Qayyim, and others, his adherence was principled, not blind. For example, He argued that the original ruling of triple talaq according to the Hanbali school, should revert to a ruling based on the Prophetic precedent. He held that a triple talaq pronounced at once counts as only one divorce. This was actually the position of the Maliki school and a minority opinion within the Hanbali school, but he adopted it because he believed the evidence from the Sunnah was stronger. This ruling, which he championed along with other Saudi scholars like Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Uthaymeen, was a clear case of departing from the dominant Hanbali view in favor of what he saw as a more textually sound position. His position on triple talaq was later adopted as the law in Saudi Arabia. 

One of the very few revered scholars of the modern-day Salifis who showed disdain for the madhhabs was al-Albaani. He was a special case. Sheikh Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani is one of the most significant and controversial Islamic scholars of the 20th century. Regardless of how anyone feels about him. His contribution to the deen was enormous. His approach to Islamic law represents a radical departure from the traditional school-based system. Albani was born in Albania (1914) but grew up and worked in Damascus, Syria. He was entirely self-taught in hadith sciences. His profession was originally as a watchmaker, and he spent his life studying hadith manuscripts in libraries like al-Zahiriyya in Damascus. To his credit, he almost singlehandedly rekindled interest in the sciences of hadith. He did not follow an established madhhab. Muqbal ibn Hadi also didn’t follow a madhhab, Salih ibn Fawzan is a Hanbali, and so was Rabi’ bin Hadi al-Madkhali who died earlier this year (rahimuhu Allah). And may Allah sub’haanahu have mercy upon ALL the scholars of Islam.

The point we’re making here is that the overwhelming majority of major scholars that the modern-day quote and follow, were all scholars who followed established madhhabs in their rulings. This makes modern-day Salafi aversion to madhhabs curiously conspicuous. Even when these scholars diverged from their madhhab on certain issues, they still operated within a madhhab framework, using its tools, its tools, its usool, its juristic logic, and its intellectual inheritance. Meanwhile… New Converts Are Told Madhhabs Don’t Exist. This is where sociological cynicism kicks in. 

New converts to Salafism, especially Black American converts. are rarely told what a madhhab is, why madhhabs exist, how Islamic law developed, or how the scholars they admire were trained. Instead, they’re handed a simplistic narrative: “The four madhhabs are man‑made”. “We follow the Qur’an and Sunnah directly.” This is not education, this is branding. 

It created a generation of Muslims who: reject the very system their own scholars relied on, who believe they can interpret texts without training, and assume that 1,200 years of legal scholarship is optional. This anti‑madhhab messaging inherent in modern-day Safiyyah serves a purpose and reveals the cynical reality behind the rhetoric: It keeps new converts dependent on Salafi teachers. It prevents them from accessing the broader Sunni tradition. It isolates them from the intellectual tools that would allow independent thought, and it ensures loyalty to the Salafi ecosystem — its bookstores, its conferences, its scholars, its ideology, and its brand. Because once a convert learns what a madhhab actually is, a disciplined legal methodology, not a sect, the entire Salafi narrative begins to unravel. Anti-madhhab rhetoric doesn’t exist just amongst the Salafis. Other Muslims are joining the anti-madhhab chorus. I’ve written about this elsewhere. If someone is seriously pursuing Islamic knowledge and knowledge of fiqh, the last thing you want to do is be anti-madhhab. And Allah knows best. Imam Luqman Ahmad 

Shaykh Luqman Ahmad, born and raised in Philadelphia Pa, and son of American converts to Islam, is an American Muslim scholar, educator, and community leader with more than four decades of service. A graduate of the Islamic University of Omdurman, with time spent at Umm al-Qura University, and in classes at the Haram in Mecca. Imam was first introduced to Islamic learning by his parents, he studied with numerous scholars, most notably the late “Sayyid Sabiq”, author of the book “Fiqh as-Sunnah”.  For a list of his teachers, consult his blog at imamluqman.wordpress,com. He served as the Imam of Masjid Ibrahim Islamic Center in California for 20 years, guiding one of the region’s most diverse Muslim communities with a blend of classical Sunni scholarship and deep awareness of American social realities. Over the course of his career, he has also served as an Imam and or resident scholar at several masaajid across the country, including in Philadelphia, Toledo, Sacramento, and Folsom, California.