Albani: A Salafist par excellence

After all, even the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him, his pious descendants and noble companions died and many of his companions were assassinated yet the course survived and has indeed been spreading all over the world.Besides, having already been predestined to die that way and at exactly that moment, […]

After all, even the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him, his pious descendants and noble companions died and many of his companions were assassinated yet the course survived and has indeed been spreading all over the world.
Besides, having already been predestined to die that way and at exactly that moment, Shiekh Albani lost nothing in reality. Instead, his assassins and their sponsors are the real losers who will also have to live with the frustration of witnessing the phenomenal spread of his legacy, just as it has been the case since the assassination of Sheikh Ja’afar Adam. This is of course before they are made to stand face to face with their victims before Allah the Almighty when and where absolute justice prevails.
Interestingly enough, Islamic Salafism with which Sheikh Albani is identified is not a sect neither is it an organization. It is instead a method of Da’awah that encourages Muslims to revert to and hold on to the authentic message of Islam as originally revealed, which is exclusively contained in the noble Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah according to the understanding of the pious predecessors i.e. the Prophet’s companions who were obviously the earlier Muslim generations.   
This is even though they were not infallible; after all, human infallibility was an exclusive attribute of the Prophet (pbuh) only.  Yet, having been fortunate enough to be his contemporaries who accepted Islam and witnessed the revelation of the Qur’anic verses and the circumstances under which they were revealed, they were obviously in the best position to understand their meanings and intendments better than any other person.
This necessarily means that, the context in which they understood the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah is the only valid yardstick of determining the validity of the interpretation or explanation of any Qur’anic verse and Prophetic Hadith. Because Allah the Almighty had endorsed and granted them, along with those who follow their footsteps, His Pleasure and indeed guaranteed them admission into Paradise, as He the Almighty says “And the foremost to embrace Islam of the Muhajirun (those who migrated from Makkah to Al-Madinah) and the Ansaar (the citizens of Al-Madinah who helped and gave aid to the Muhajirun) and also those who followed them exactly (in Faith.) Allah is well-pleased with them as they are well-pleased with Him. He has prepared for them Garden under which rivers flow (Paradise) to dwell therein forever. That is the supreme success.” (Qur’an, At-Taubah, Verse 100)
Moreover, Salafism as a terminology evolved over the centuries to define the Islamic Da’awah method that focuses on countering the influence of some heretic religious and cultural philosophies of other cultures and civilizations, which had begun to creep into Islamic literature, as a result of territorial and demographic expansion and growth achieved by the religion. Also Muslim scholars with a particular commitment to counter such heresies, unearth the legacy of the earlier Muslim generations and encourage Muslims to cling to it were, and are still, referred to as Salafists.
In other words, as a result of that that expansion, many nations with different religions, cultures and civilizations much older than Islamic civilization, converted to Islam and began to look at and interpret Islamic theological concepts in the context of their respective religious, philosophical and cultural backgrounds. And over the subsequent centuries, their philosophical reasoning and perspectives, which largely contradicted Islamic viewpoint, began to gradually influence Muslims’ intellectual works, and indeed began to overshadow the bases of the authentic understanding of Islamic theological concepts as understood by the earlier Muslim generations.
Of course that also led to the emergence of many heretic theological and philosophical schools of thought claiming to interpret or explain Islamic creed and teachings, as it also led to the emergence of different heretic sects and orders with heretic dogmas and rituals that contradicted the true Islamic teachings, a situation that has unfortunately persisted ever since then.
Nevertheless, there have always been Salafi scholars everywhere and every time who have often refuted such heresies, innovations and indeed any misconceptions about Islam or any part thereof, and have always emphasized  the imperative of reverting and clinging to the legacy of the Salaf all the time.
Therefore having spent and indeed lost his life in the course of reviving and propagating the authentic message of Islam as revealed to the Prophet and understood by his noble companions, we pray to Allah the Almighty to join him together with his predecessors i.e. the Prophets, the martyrs and the righteous. After all, He (i.e. Allah the Almighty) has guaranteed people like him the bliss of the Paradise as He says “Think not of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are alive, with their Lord, and they have provision. They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty and rejoice for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve.” (Qur’an, Al-Imran, Verses 169-170).