For you Salafi Ikhwaan

[slaveof Allaah]

Quick question, do you consider yourselves to follow a Madhab in fiqh and the Athari school in Aqidah? I heard this from many Al Maghrib students, they went on to say that even some of their teachers think like this. Is this true?

[MohammadMufti]

In fiqh I follow generally the madhab of Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa (rahimullah) except where my teacher diverges from it or one of my other teachers diverge from it in which case I follow another position based on their researches and daleel. For example, I'm taught that praying on other than Earth is makruh (a divergence based on Maliki fiqh I believe) so I try to pray on the Earth when possible. For 'alahuma sali'allah muhemmed...' I read it twice (which I think is Shafi'i). But it generally depends on which scholars/teachers I'm learning from. Other than that I follow Athari aqidah.

[True Life]

So, basicly in Fiqh you make taqleed of your teacher(s)?

[MohammadMufti]

Essentially yes, all of my teachers follows one of the madhabs. It is not taqleed per-se as we have different teachers (belonging to different madhabs) and they all teach in the same area, so I've always been encouraged to accept a position on which they given the daleel. So for example, last saturday, one of my teachers was speaking on the matter of wudu. And he brought up how some people claim we should not to masah of the neck, and I've been taught to do so (even though it is based on weak ahadith) because a weak hadith is better than nothing and our goal is only closeness to Allah (swt). On another matter, we discussed the wudu being done over the shoe (and how some of the Salafis of today say that wudu can be done over the shoe as opposed to only over the sock). And my teacher's position is that it can be done over the sock only because the people (during prophet's (saw) time) only had one layer for the shoe and he gave daleel for this that once a dog was found thirsty and the Muslim used the shoe to fetch water in it (though I was not able to certify the daleel he gave since when I went and checked in Bukhari, I found a hadith like it but it had a woman of Banu Israel). But even so I was told to follow the position out of precaution.