There is a common misconception today, that Muslims are not also Salafis. This labeling the majority of Sunnis as "Salafists" or "Wahhabis" is starting to border on hate speech, so I have to clear something up now. Firstly, Sunnis and Sufis all call themselves Muslims, and hardly do they get into discussions about their differences, except as an educational exercise. We are very united in our views and aspirations, but appear to be disunited; the media perpetrates the appearance of great schisms, which don't really exist (or result in disunity) among Muslims in their daily relationships with each other.
Secondly, just as people find Sufis loveable, so are the general Muslims loveable. They are not murderers, bigots, rapists, haters; they are people with religious convictions and beliefs, which reflect their upbringing and also their love of God Almighty and Muhammad, and Islam. Their goal in life isn’t to cause others pain and suffering. They are just as kind and compassionate as anybody else. I really resent these labels, which America and the media are attaching to Sunni Muslims.
All Muslims call themselves Muslims, and don’t believe they need any labels apart from that to be counted among the true believers. Some words, such as “Hanbali” or “Maaliki” denote the school of thought a person might adhere to in his daily practice and way of worship, such that his hands are placed a certain way, or he makes certain specific actions in the prayer, which other Sunnis who are not from the same school, or raised in the same country or region where he would have learned the same traditions don't all do - but which are all based on Islamic traditions found in the books, such as Sahih Bukhari or Sahih Muslim, and others. When someone has studied under a scholar he may change the way he practices in some small ways, which might reflect more closely how the Prophet did things, compared to many others who have learned Islam from their parents or an older sibling or their cousins. None of this is dangerous or removes one out of the fold of Islam. Most common people don’t know about the finer points or the discussions which are held in classrooms as intellectual exercises, or to discover which traditions match more closely with what the early Muslims did, who we call in Islamic terminology, “the salaf”. (If you understand what “the salaf” means, then you should be careful of using the term “salafi”) It is not to refer to bad or evil Muslims who you fear are the enemy, because such "salafists" don’t exist~!! There is no evil “salafi” because a “salafi” person is one who tries his best to be a Muslim in the tradition of the earliest Muslims, who are all our best examples.
Non-Muslims and especially the media want to “label” many of the Muslims as terrorists, and using the label Salafi for Muslims as though they are evil, and as though the word “Salafi” means something which it doesn’t or a bad person, or a bad “cult”(which it really doesn’t in the original usage) Salafi is just another way to say a person who follows the way of the Prophet Muhammad and the early generations of Muslims.
If someone is afraid of Muslims in general, without good reason, then he is an Islamophobe, and there is little hope he will learn the truth of Islam and what Muslims really believe. But if someone is just confused by labels, they should try to discover the truth about Islam and Muslims by reading or going to proper Islamic websites, and ask a Muslim about their concerns. I for one am willing to entertain anyone who is sincere about learning more about any issue related to Islam and Muslims. If I can give evidence or at least tell my personal beliefs, which I can say are the mainstream, then I’m happy to oblige. I don’t insist someone has to become a Muslim. I am not preaching Islam to convert people, though that would please me, but I am really more interested in explaining the true meaning of Islam and teaching others about what I really believe. Islam is not “of the devil” or a strange “cult”; it is a “religion” in the truest and best sense of the word.
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