نشریه سلفی پژوهی
پیاپی 13 (بهار و تابستان 1400)

It is said that Ibn Taymiyyah is one of the pioneers of the project of "the authenticity of the Salaf understanding". Narrowing down the concept of the Salaf, he considers that the "Khalaf" scholars are not worthy of understanding the religious texts and must adjust their understanding with the Salaf understanding; maintaining that Salaf understanding is superior to the Khalaf. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether this basis is valid or not? And whether the authority of Salaf understanding is boundless or limited? The basis of many deviant sects, especially Wahhabism, goes back to the theories of Ibn Taymiyyah; therefore, in this essay, the view of Ibn Taymiyyah is examined. In this study, after analyzing Ibn Taymiyyah's view on Salaf understanding, we came to the conclusion that the reasons cited by Ibn Taymiyyah in the authority of understanding the Salaf is not valid. They are either too broad or contradict with the reason and historical evidences. This leads us to the point that understanding the Salaf as a basic theory is not authentic.

Worship is one of the most important concepts in Salafi literature, which plays an important role in proving Takfir. According to Salafi's view, what is considered worship in the literal meaning as worship has technical meaning, and  If this worship is for God, it is the worship of God, and if it is for something other than God, it will be the worship of others; Therefore, the Salafi consider the subjects such as "supplication for something other than God" and "slaughtering for creatures" as polytheism; But the care must be taken that this view on worshiping has several setbacks, for example, "prostration for Non- God" has happened before and definitely it is not polytheism. Since we can find the cases that are considered as a worship act and it is done for someone other than God, by the same way, we can claim that "supplication for something other than God" is permitted as well and it is not polytheism. The Salafi may justify his claim as the following: firstly, this prostration was not "Sajdah"; secondly, prophet Adam (PBH) was not Qibla; thirdly, this was not the technical Sajdah; fourthly, this Sajdah was an exception. All of these justifications are problematic and cannot disprove our claim.

Indoctrination of the dead after burial (Talqeen) is one of the issues on which the majority of Muslims concur; On the other hand, most Wahhabis consider this act to be heresy. Since this issue is not scrutinized from the viewpoint of four major Islamic sects and Wahhabism, in the following essay, we decided to consider this topic. The majority of Sunni scholars, including Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali concur on this issue, and even fundamentalist figures such as Ibn Taymiyyah al-Harrani and his disciple Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, have said that: "Indoctrination of the dead after burial is a tradition, and permissible." But, most Wahhabis, such as al-Albani and Binbaz, believe that such an act is heresy and say that their predecessors (Salaf) did not do so. While the Sunnis, the Companions and the Salaf believed in inculcating the dead; Therefore, from the time of Salaf until today, Muslims have been indoctrinating the dead after burial.

The establishment an Islamic government has always been an ambition for many Islamic thinkers. Meanwhile, Sayyid Qutb by presenting the theory of the ignorant society and the need to change it in order to achieve Islamic rule has a great influence on contemporary radical and jihadist groups. The following essay examines and critiques Sayyid Qutb's thought on mechanism of establishing a religious government. Many authors have studied and criticized the ideas of Sayyid Qutb in this field; however, no one has considered Sayyid Qutb's strategy of establishing a religious government and has not examined his thoughts on the mechanism of this goal. The present study examines Sayed Qutb's strategy and his methodology in establishing an Islamic government, explaining his discourse in three axes: model society, ignorant society and the way to deal with it, providing details on establishing a religious government with emphasis on military jihad. The result of this research is that according to the Qur'anic verses, the correct path to a religious government crosses from internal revolution of individuals in society, leading to a cultural revolution in the society. Religious government will be achieved by members of society - not military act.

The language of the Qur'an is one of the issues on which various opinions have been raised among thinkers. Some of the Views are as the following: symbolic language of the Quran, poetic language, mythology, allegory, common sense, general custom, and so on. The present study, using a comparative-analytic method, considers the Imamiyyah and Salafi Takfiri groups on this issue, discussing and reasons of these two groups. The common ground between these two groups is that both of them maintain that religious propositions are meaningful. The separating point is that Imamiyyah believe that language of the Quran is understandable by the common people, maintaining that Quran has some interiors that only the Imams can discern it. But on the other side, the Salafi holds that the reason has no role in understanding the Holy Quran and there is no interior meaning and only the literal meaning is valid. This view has some bad consequences such as similarity in the attributes of God with his creatures and his deficiency

Neo-Salafist Jihadies believe that all their jihadist actions have Quranic and Hadithic evidences. They have adopted five general principles for using the suicide operations. In the case of their attacks to the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran and other Islamic countries as the following: 1- these attacks are on the bases of the sovereignty verse in the Quran, all the rulers in Islamic countries are absolute infidels. 2- Iran and other Islamic countries are Dar al-Kufr. 3- Democracy equals to tyranny, and citizens participating in elections are infidels. 4- Legislation is polytheism and the representatives of the people are polytheists. 5- Those who are related to the representatives are also infidels. We can disprove these claims as it follows: firstly: According to Sunni interpretations, the word infidelity in "the verse of sovereignty" means minor infidelity. Second: According to Sunni principles, Iran and other Islamic countries are Dar al-Islam. Third: According to the consensus of Sunni and Shia, democracy is not only polytheism; rather, it is one of the most original Islamic teachings. Fourth: the laws of the Iranian parliament must be in accordance with the holy sharia. Fifth: The prophetic tradition shows that people were interacting with their representatives to obtain laws. The present study has investigated this subject in a descriptive-analytical manner.