In time, Abu Talhah (may Allah’s mercy be upon him), Abu Khadeejah, Abu ‘Iyād and Abu Hakeem and others would become among some of the most influential members of the Salafi Da‘wah scene in the UK and globally, joined by other students of knowledge (also from Britain) such Abu Yusuf Abdul-Ilāh Lahmāmi, Abu Abdur Rahmān Uways Taweel, Abu Idrees Muhammad Khan, Hasan As-Somāli and Abu Abdullāh Bilal Hussain from about 2001 onwards. Together, these individuals created a transnational network by forging links between the Salafis in the West and some of the Major Salafi scholars in Arab countries, such as Shaykh Rabee’ Ibn Hādi Al-Madkhali, Shaykh ‘Ubayd Al-Jābiri, Shaykh Ahmad An-Najmi, Shaykh Zayd Al-Madkhali, Shaykh ‘Abdullāh Al-Ghudayān, Shaykh Al-Luhaydān, etc., each famous for their firm stances against Ahlul-Bid’ah.
It is thus unsurprising that those who fought alongside Shaykh Al-‘Allāmah Rabee’ in defence of the Sunnah and Islam to repel false understandings, innovations and false principles would also become the object of enmity and hatred,[1] earning the pejorative label Madākhilah[2] (largely an updated synonym for Saudi-Wahhabism and intended to make people believe that the Salafis blindly follow Shaykh Dr Rabee’ Ibn Hādi Al-Madkhali). Consequently, SalafiPubs’s affiliation with Shaykh Rabee’ would go on to become, at best, a criterion by which a person’s Salafiyyah would be validated, and at worst, negated due to their intense dislike of Shaykh Rabee’.[3] This kind of reflexive activity was ‘transformative of social relations’ and changed the face of Salafism in the UK. It also serves as an excellent example of the ‘intensification of worldwide relations … through the interaction of the local and the global’.[4] Moreover, the emergence of Salafism as a revivalist religious group in the West that is based upon the relationship between the Salafi du‘āt in the UK and the senior Salafi scholars in the Arab lands also strongly demonstrates how the global field involves the relationship between the international and local ‘conducted through new trust-generating abstract systems’,[5] something unimaginable in pre-modern times.[6]
[1] The Historical Development of the Methodologies of al-Ikhwaan al-Muslimeen and Their Effect Upon the Contemporary Salafee Da‘wa h, Salafi Publications, April 2003: page 4. Source: Spubs.com.
[2] Shaykh Sālih al-Fawzan on Using the Labels of “Jāmiyyah” and “Madākhilah”, 4th March 2012., [and see: An Adequate Response to the Scorn, Lies, Deceit of Daniel Haqiqatjou Against Ahlus-Sunnah-wal-Jamaah. 2023. Source: abukhadeejah.com]
[3] Ibid: page 6., [From the-affairs used to establish the Salafiyyah of a person also see: Shaykh Ubaid: People are tested by their stance towards Shaykh-Rabee’. 2016.Source: abukhadeejah.com].
[4] Eade 1992:20.
[5] Ibid.
[6] ‘According to Giddens, our trust in abstract systems stems from a transformation of time and space. In pre-modern societies, life was primarily based on face-to-face interactions and natural cycles. However, modernity has meant that time has become more abstract and space has become less of a hindrance’. 2016. Accessible at: Social Theory Re-wired.
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