Belief and Islam

It is not right to say that the madhhabs of al-Ash’arî and al-
Mâturîdî were founded later. These two great imâms explained
the knowledge of i’tiqâd and îmân communicated by the Salaf
as-sâlihîn, arranged it in classes and published it, making it
comprehensible for youngsters. Al-Imâm al-Ash’arî was in al-
Imâm ash-Shâfi’î’s chain of disciples. And al-Imâm al-Mâturîdî
was a great link in al-Imâm al-a’zam Abû Hanîfa’s chain of
disciples. Al-Ash’arî and al-Mâturîdî did not go out of their
masters’ common Madhhab; they did not found new Madhhabs.
These two and their teachers and the imâms of the four
Madhhabs had one common Madhhab: the Madhhab in belief
well known with the name Ahl as-Sunnat wa-l-Jamâ’a. The
credal tenets held by the people of this group are the same as the
credal tenets held by the Sahâbat al-kirâm, the Tâbi’în and Taba’
at-Tâbi’în. The book, Fiqh al-akbar, written by al-Imâm al-a’zam
Abû Hanîfa, defends the Madhhab of Ahl as-Sunna. The word
‘Salafiyya’ does not exist in that book or in al-Imâm al-Ghazâlî’s
Iljâm Al-awâm ’ani-l-kalâm. These two books and Qawl al-fasl, [1]
one of the commentaries to the book Fiqh al-akbar, teaches the
Madhhab of Ahl as-Sunna and answers the heretical groups and
philosophers. Al-Imâm al-Ghazâlî writes in his book Iljâm alawâm:
“In this book I shall inform that the Madhhab of the Salaf
is right and correct. I shall explain that those who swerve from
this Madhhab are holders of bid’a. The Madhhab of the Salaf
means the Madhhab held by the Sahâbat al-kirâm and the
Tâbi’în. The essentials of this Madhhab are seven.” As is seen,
the book Iljâm writes the seven essentials of the Madhhab of the
‘Salaf.’ To say that they are the essentials of the “Salafiyya’ is to
distort the writing of the book and to slander al-Imâm al-
Ghazâlî. As in all the books of Ahl as-Sunna, it is written below
the entries ‘Salaf’ and ‘Khalaf’ in the chapter dealing with
“Witnessing” in the book Durr al-mukhtâr, a very valuable book
of Fiqh: “Salaf is an epithet for the Sahâba and the Tâbi’în. They
are also called the Salaf as-sâlihîn. And those ’ulamâ’ of Ahl as-
Sunna succeeding the Salaf as-sâlihîn are called ‘Khalaf.’” Al-
Imâm al-Ghazâlî, al-Imâm ar-Râdî and al-Imâm al-Beydâwî,
who were loved and honoured above all by the ’ulamâ’ of Tafsîr,
were all in the Madhhab of Salaf as-sâlihîn. Groups of bid’a that
[1] The books Fiqh al-akbar, Iljâm and Qawl al-fasl have been
reproduced by Hakîkat Kitabevi in Istanbul.
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