Bismillah wa s-salatu wa s-salam wa ra'ana rasulillahi Sallallahu alayhi wa s-salam ama ba'dah As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Brothers and sisters, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you and to introduce you to a brand new show and a brand new podcast called The Hot Seat. To understand a little bit more about The Hot Seat, we first have to understand the context of the modern-day world we find ourselves living in in the year 2019. It is a world in which perhaps there are more doubts, misconceptions and misinterpretations that are thrown around about the religion of Islam than in any other period of time in the history of mankind. The internet is a number one source used by people globally to acquire information on any topic and it is riddled and full of false notions and erroneous ideologies about the Dean of Allah, Aziz al-Wajab. Our kids, ourselves are being exposed to this kind of information on a daily and if not daily then at the very least weekly basis and whether we know it or not, whether we choose to accept it or not, it is having an effect on ourselves, our hearts, our minds and ultimately our understanding of this beautiful religion. To further complicate the problem, many of us find ourselves living in Western societies where the governments and the social norms and pressures are constantly trying to redefine what is good and what is bad, what is accepted and what is rejected, what Islam is and is allowed to be and what Islam is never allowed to be. All of this, my brothers and sisters, ultimately leads to confusion, it leads to ignorance and if Allah permits it can lead to misguidance. The hot seat has therefore been designed with the permission of Allah alone to counter these kind of modern day, contemporary issues head on by using the knowledge and the guidance of the Muslims of the past, the early generations of Muslims, the best of generations. There's not a single Muslim on the face of the planet today that would doubt the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala completed our religion for us over 1400 years ago and that that completed, holistic, perfect religion is just as applicable now in the year 2019 as it was back then. We truly do have classical solutions for contemporary problems. However, this isn't your normal average Islamic lecture series. First of all, it's not a lecture, it's a discussion between two parties, often opposing parties in an attempt to reach the truth but isn't it there? And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it's a unique, one of its kind interactive podcast where you from the comfort of your own home have the opportunity to vote for and to choose the topic we'll be discussing on the show. You also have the chance to ask your own questions on these contemporary issues and to grill the speaker if you feel like he hasn't been grilled enough on the show itself. I'll be releasing details of how you can do both of those things at the end of this episode. But for now, without any further ado, let's get into this episode of The Hot Seat. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Sallad al-ar-Rahman. JazakAllah khayran once again for joining me on The Hot Seat. Wa alaikum assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. JazakAllah fahabimi. This was actually the first episode that we actually released a vote for the public. So they had the opportunity to go on the website which is www.thohotseedpodcast.com and they could choose a topic that they want us to discuss. So with a resounding 64%, the topic that we're going to be discussing today is deconstructing Salafism in the 21st century. That's really what the public want us to talk about today. So I think a good place to start is with some simple definitions. What is Salafism? What is it in the language and what is it in the religion? Alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin. Lahu alhamdulillahi hasal. Wa thala'u al-jamil. Wa shadu'a la ilaha illallah wahdahu la sharikalah. Wa shadu'a al-na sayedina wa nabiyina Muhammad. As-salallahu alayhi wa ala alayhi wa as-shaabih. Wa ttaabi'ina lahum bi-ahsanin ila yumidin amma ba'din. The term Salaf has come in the Quran in eight places. No more, no less. Eight places in the Quran. The meaning that it revolves around in those eight places in the Quran is taqaddu min wa sabq. The scholars, they say, as-sin wa-lamu wa-lfa'u aslun yadullu ala taqaddu min wa sabqin. That the sin, lam, and fa, Salaf. It comes from ancestors. Ancestors. And predecessors. Okay. That's what it means in the language. Allah says, And the meaning in all of those two verses that I mentioned, and the other remaining verses is ancestor and a predecessor. So some people who have come before us. Nah. Okay. And so is this a linguistic definition or is this an Islamic specific definition? This is the lexical definition. I'm the linguistic definition. Okay. So in Arabic language, that's what it means. And what does it mean in the religion of Islam then? And the meaning in the Arabic language is, And what does it mean in the religion of Islam then? In the Sharia, it means, the scholars, they said, it means following and being of the methodology of the three noble generation. 3 Quran al-Mufadalah. Based on the Hadith al-Sahihain, al-Bukhari al-Mussli, al-Hadith al-Abdullahi al-Mas'oot, the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, The best of generation is my generation and the generation that comes after and the generation that comes after. So the messenger, he mentioned three generation. And in another ayah, Allah Azza wa Jalla, he said, Again, Allah mentioned here, the early generation. Okay. So the scholars, they said, that these three noble generation, these golden generation, they're the ones that are considered to be the salaf, the predecessors. Okay. That's why many scholars, they say salaf al-Saleh, a salaf al-Saleh. Yeah, what does that mean? We've heard that before as well. Pious predecessors. Okay. Meaning they've come before us, not just in time, but in piety and virtue. Because some people might say, well, Abu Jahl came before and Abu Lahab came before as well and he was at the time of the messenger. So what we say is, we're not just looking at those who precede us in time, but we're looking at those who precede us in virtue as well. Okay. So they precede us in time and virtue. Okay. Simultaneously. So those are what the scholars mean when they say, Okay, so that's the term salaf. I think it's also worth clarifying things that have taken the word salaf but added things to the end. For example, you often hear the word salafia or salafism. What kind of relation does this have to the term salaf? So the word salafi is an inscription. You're scribing yourself now to the early generation. Okay. You're saying, I'm upon their way. You're attributing yourself to them. Because in the hadith that I just mentioned, the Prophet SAW said, They are the best of people.  Okay. So they are virtuous in three things. Their knowledge was profound because they saw the revelation come down. They saw what was taking place at the time of the Messenger SAW. Secondly, their actions. When they took that knowledge from the Messenger SAW, their implementation was also unprecedented and their piety and their belief system, what they believed in and their faith and their aqidah was also the best. No one can level to them or be like them. So we're attributing ourselves. You're attributing yourself when you say salafi, you're attributing yourself to them in knowledge, in action and also in belief, in their creed. That makes sense. I don't think I would disagree with you when you say that they were the most virtuous, they were the most knowledgeable, they were the most pious. I don't think I would disagree with you. But why do I have to call myself salafi? Why can't I just call myself Muslim? Allah doesn't combine me to call myself salafi, did He? You see, the question that many scholars have discussed and they spoke about is, Hukmulintima, is it permissible for you to attribute yourself to salafiya and say, I am a salafi and bring that year of description. Say, I am a salafi, describing yourself to the three noble generation. And why would one have to do that? Isn't Islam not enough? Yeah, 100%. You see, in the early stages of Islam, the early generation, when the time of the process of Islam was alive, you know, everybody, whatever khilaf, whatever problems happened, it would be brought back to the messengers, alayhi salatu salam. Okay. He was alive. He was the one that would correct the people's mistakes. They would refer back to him. He would solve their problems. He would answer their questions. Any inquiries that they had, it was to him that they brought it back to. After the messengers, salallahu alayhi salam, had died, and he already prophesied this. He told us, when he, salallahu alayhi salam, had died and he passed away, there came groups, people who swayed away from that path. They left that path. They left the path of the messenger, alayhi salatu salam. The path that he left his companions on. Okay. So their groups came, the khawadij, for example, the early group that came. They came and they labeled the people, disbelievers, and they caused havoc and corruption on the earth. And also then the Rafidah came, the Murjiah and then the Mu'tazilah came. So different groups. So different groups came, which some of those groups are still Muslims. They're considered to be from within Islam. So the early generation, the noble generation, the scholars of that time, who were still upon the path of the messenger, alayhi salatu salam, they saw it to be necessary by unanimous agreement that they need to distinguish themselves from these groups. I mean, these groups, they asked some of them are Muslims, but you say I'm a Muslim and them calling themselves a Muslim, it doesn't distinguish one from the other. So they wanted to say that you guys, since you walked away from the path of the early generation, that which the messenger was upon and his companions, we're going to attribute ourselves to those early generation, to the Prophet, alayhi salam, and the companions. So we're going to be called Salafi. We're going to attribute ourselves to them. Because if you've got all of these groups, they got attributed to either a leader from the group, or they got attributed to a corrupt belief that they held. So give an example of what you mean. Like for example, the Khawarij. They were called Khawarij because they rebelled against the Muslim leader, which was a credo problem. So they got called Khawarij. They got attributed to that, that misguided belief of this. So it's a way of distinction, basically, to say that I'm not following any kind of innovative ideology. I'm following the ideology of the, as you said, Salaf al-Sarikh, the pious predecessors. I would question, however, is that even still relevant in the modern world? It might have been many centuries ago when you say I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, I'm Salafi, people automatically understand what you're saying. But in the 21st century, in the year 2019, we have so many different groups of Salafis. This one's claiming he's Salafi, this one's claiming he's Salafi, and this one's claiming he's Salafi. So by saying that I'm Salafi, you're not really distinguishing yourself from anybody. You could be a Salafi jihadi, you could be a political, someone who's inclined towards politics, or you could be someone who's just involved in teaching and Talbiya and not really concerned with politics. So all of these are Salafis, are they not? So you see, one part I do want to mention, which is I think it's a contention that many people have, or a point that many people bring up, which is they might even question whether the early generation called themselves Salafis. Like they would say, were there people called Salafis? Is this even true? Can you give us examples and proofs? So I think that also needs to be put there before the answering of that question. Before we get there, was it mentioned in the Quran? Not Salaf, like you mentioned, that was mentioned eight times, was that word mentioned in the Quran? You see, the term Salafiyah, as I said to you, it became a consensus amongst the early generation. It became a consensus that you can attribute yourself to Salafiyah. You could call yourself by that name. That it's permissible. Not that it's obligatory, but it's permissible. And that a consensus was transmitted as well that if a person does attribute himself to Salafiyah, you would have to accept it from him. Let me give you one person who transmitted that consensus. There is no blame on the person who attributes himself to the Madhab of Salaf, or he shows himself to be upon the Madhab of the Salaf. When he attributes himself to him, he calls the people to it. And then he said, and if he does say I'm a Salafi, and he attributes himself to the Salaf, he said, it is obligatory to accept that from him. Okay, so someone says I'm Salafi, it doesn't matter what they believe, what their actions are, we just agree with Salafi. Beautiful. So when a person says I am a Salafi, just like if a person said I'm a Muslim, then we accept it from him. And then after that, we have the rights to see if what he said is in line with what Salafiah is. Just like the Munaafiqin, the Messenger of Salamah, some of them were lying. So they came, and they showed themselves to be Muslims, and the Messenger of Salamah accepted Islam from them. But as time went on, it became clear from their actions, or that which they brought out apparent, that they were not Muslims. So how do we know if someone is Salafi or someone is just saying I'm a Salafi? If a person is showing us that he is a Salafi, then we accept it from him, even if he doesn't believe it in his heart, because that same statement of Ibn Utamiya, that same question is what he was answering, which is, he said, if someone shows us Salafiah, we will accept it from him, just like we would accept somebody, they're Islam from them. If he says I'm a Muslim, from the apparent, because we were not, Sheikh Muslim, he says in that same quote, he said we were not placed as ones to judge people's intentions. We're here to just rule and judge people based on their apparent action. So if a person says I'm a Salafi, we'll take it from him. We wouldn't say but your heart, this isn't what's in your heart, this is not true, that's not our job. But if after that he doesn't show what Salafiah is, and he doesn't hold on to Salafiah, he doesn't come with the simat, the usul that Salafiah stands on, the simat usul, characteristics and the foundations that Salafiah stands on. If he doesn't come with that, then it's just like somebody claiming Islam and not really being a Muslim. Like if Qadiyani says I'm a Muslim, you wouldn't accept it from him, right? Because he goes against a fundamental issue. So then what is the belief of a Salafi then? Just one quote that would be very nice in this issue is that, Al Imam would, Al Imam, When he spoke about, when he spoke about Adara Qutni, for example, Adara Qutni is a great Imam, a scholar of hadith. He was amazing in hadith. I don't know how to praise him. Adara Qutni, his name, he came to Baghdad and he said to the people of Baghdad, don't worry, as long as I live amongst you, there's no one who can lie about the prophet. I will make sure that the hadith of the prophet, I still haven't clarified. This is the type of person he was. So look at what, Al Imam Al-Dahabi, who said in his, he said that, that it was authentically transmitted from Adara Qutni that he said, there is nothing I hate more than philosophy.  Dahabi then straight away when he wrote that statement of Adara Qutni, he commented on it, right under it. He said, this man had never spoken, nor has he entered into this subject, philosophy. Walal Jidal, and he never went into this sophistry and debate tactics. He didn't waste his time on all of this. But why? He was a Salafi. He used the word Salafi. He said he was a Salafi. He was a Salafi. So, Salafi is known from there, as Dara Qutni, when he was talking about him, Dahabi, that Salafi has a characteristics, things that he's known for, things he does. It's not just a mere claim. Because the Prophet, told us in the hadith, if everybody was given what they claimed, a group of people claim the blood and the wealth of a group of people. I would come and say, what you're wearing and the thob that you're wearing is mine.  But the Prophet said, The one who claims, has to bring evidence for his claim. So, if a person says, I'm a Salafi, Salafi has usul, has foundations, it has principles. If you're not in line with those principles, it's not that someone's chosen to take you out of Salafi, it's not that someone's out there to take you out of Salafi, but it's just you haven't fulfilled the criteria of what Salafi is. You've not come with the requirements of Salafi. Okay. I think one of the most ironic things about Salafis is, and people who ascribe themselves to Salafi, is that they're always talking about the past, the glory days of the past, that we should return to the early three, the first three generations, like you yourself mentioned just now. Yet, the movement of Salafism or Salafi is a relatively new movement. It really started and it really gained weight and traction from Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab in the 18th century. He was passed away in 1792. So we're talking about the 18th century. And then more recently you have the university of Medina established in 1961 and that's really what propagated a lot of Salafis to go around the globe and say, spread the Salafi Dawa. Really, both of these things are very recent. The 18th century is really not that far along ago when you consider the history of Islam. So why is this contradiction present people saying we should return to the early generations, yet this is a completely untrue saying. And that's not true. And anyone who does say that they don't have a proof for that. And that's just a mere claim again. The reason why it's a mere claim is because Salafiyah, in Wallahi one sentence Salafiyah is the pure Islam. That's all it is. Every group claims that. Okay. Salafiyah doesn't have a leader. Every group has a leader that runs it. And that's why I'll tell you something. Sheikh Al-Albani Rahima Allah, Muhammad Nasir Dina Al-Albani Rahima Allah. There was a Kitab he wrote, Haqi Kudit, Haqiqatut Tawassul. Haqiqatut Tawassul. And he talks about whether Tawassul is permissible or not. It's a Aqeeda book. Okay. And he talks in it. In that book of his, when he was authoring it, I'm paraphrasing, inshallah. Sheikh Al-Albani Rahima Allah, when he was writing that book, in there he mentioned that he stood over a book written by another Sheikh, another Salafi Sheikh, whose name is Muhammad Nasib Al-Rifa'i. Okay. Sheikh Al-Albani said I have stood over his book whilst I was writing this book. But he said I have to point out something. Sheikh Al-Albani said this. And he used the word من حيث الأمانة العلمية for the sake of being a trustworthy person and fair in the academic world. I have to point something out. Okay, fine. Because Muhammad Nasib Al-Rifa'i and Sheikh Al-Albani were calling it the same thing. But he said I still have to be honest and say something. And he said that Muhammad Nasib Al-Rifa'i's Kitab, when he came out at the front of the book, he wrote on it and the establishment of the of Da'wah Salafiyah and Khadimuhah. He called himself that name. He called himself what was the full name in English? He said that I'm the establishment of Da'wah Salafiyah and he meant an organization he made. Okay. Which was Salafiyah organization. And he called himself the Khadimuhah, the server of it. And Sheikh Al-Albani said that we don't accept this from the Sheikh. For him to use this which goes back to the question you asked. Yeah. He said we don't accept this from him. And he said it's wrong for him to claim this. And Sheikh Al-Albani, Rahim Allah said if anybody does claim that he can also reach kufr and shirk. Okay. Because Islam, Nabilahim Allah brought it. It's Allah's religion. And even Al-Bani went on to say that Salafiyah Nabilahim Muhammad didn't even bring it. It came from Allah Az-Jalla. Nabilahim Muhammad Allah Az-Jalla.  It's the untainted version of Islam. It is It is It is It is It is The messenger said and the early generation meaning the Sahabas and those who follow them in good. What they said. Nothing more, nothing less. So where was it before the 18th century? You see are you talking about the methodology or the name? I'm talking about as we know it in the modern world the methodology the movement The methodology was always there. I told you that this is the methodology of Nabilahim Muhammad Nabilahim Muhammad was upon Abu Bakr was upon Umar was upon Uthman was upon this and Imam Malik was upon this and Imam Shafiq was upon this and you know from the Tabe'een you know Saeed Ibn Jubeid was upon this and Mujahid was upon this you see this is they passed this onto each other they were always there they always there to today we took it from one took it from the other one took it from the other one Salafiyah was always there but if you're asking me the name I told you the name the name was done when deviated groups came deviated groups came and when those deviated groups came it became necessary for the people of the sunnah for the people of Aqidah-i Ahlu Sunnah not just the name Salafiyah was coined Ahlu Sunnah was also a term that was coined at that point and the reason why it was coined was to distinguish themselves from those groups okay from those ideologies okay so saying that Salafiyah started now it's saying that the pure Islam started now that's lulm that's oppression that's run fun however in the modern world in 2019 is it even possible to go back to the way that the 7th century Arabs lived in the desert they didn't drive cars they didn't have microphones so aren't you contradicting yourself by saying I'm Salafiyah I'm Salafiyah you see when we say Salafiyah we're talking about a credo issue we're talking about sorry religious issue okay we're talking about a religious issue you know in the dunya Allah Azawajillah tells us to innovate Allah Tabarak tells us to progress you see the prophet told us in the hadith you know your world you know your world the affairs so the majal and the discussion the dialogue and the discussion is not about how people want to live in the dunya what kind of business that they want to make what kind of cars they want to drive do they want to you know have a Samsung mobile phone or do they want to have an iPhone this is not what the discussion really is about the discussion here is your knowledge of the deem who do you take it from this action that you're doing right now where did you get it from this belief that you have who can you attribute it to you see how far does it go okay would you agree that the world we live in I mean even from a religious aspect the way of practicing our religion the different groups the different ideologies is different now than it was in the 7th century would you agree with that as in what do you mean as in like even the way we practice our religion and some of the new issues and that are coming into our religion things that we need rulings on they're always changing they're always new issues that the people before us never experienced and obviously our religion so if something new in the dunya comes we need to understand the ruling of it there's new issues that are coming to light these things that they sort of never had to deal with before so how can we say then we need to return to them we need to return to them when they never experienced these issues so you're this is a very important question that many people have but they don't structure it correctly in the way they want to ask how do you reconcile between following the early generation meaning the sahabas and the tibia and the tibia and the concept of each tihad is opened not just each tihad is open but the issues we're dealing with for example let's say I know it's a dunya issue the internet for example but we need to know the religious ruling of using the internet is it permissible is it obligatory etc etc so it does affect our religion but they never had the internet okay so again we need to distinguish one from the other that the internet itself is a worldly issue it's a worldly issue so there was no objection in that concept as long as it doesn't have a shara'i problem in it it's a worldly issue you can use it as you wish you can utilize it as you wish as long as it doesn't come with a mahadir shara as long as it doesn't come with a religious prohibition okay and the concept of you know our religion you're right the Quran and the sunnah doesn't give a ruling for internet and doesn't state internet by name but as the poet said meaning so just give me a summary yeah so our Quran doesn't talk about IVF per se he doesn't speak about smoking per se and he doesn't talk about drugs per se he doesn't talk about internet per se he doesn't talk about internet of course you're not going to find those things individually mentioned but you find principles you can take all of those back to okay so it has qaw'aid it has principles those are the principles that a person needs to study and learn which the early generation knew of so a lot of these things that you're seeing today happening that you're seeing as the Nawazil contemporary issues they all go back to these Qaw'aid hence why we together in the first place. We want to show that these contemporary problems they have classical solutions. What do we mean what it has classical solutions? It means that we can take it back to an ayah and a hadith. We can take it back to a we can take it back to a legal maxim that the scholars have written. Okay. I'll give you one example and one story that I've mentioned before. At the time of Uthman Ibn Affan, Ibn Abdul Bar mentioned this in his Kitab at Timhid. At the time of Uthman Ibn Affan, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, a man accused his wife of zina. He accused her of adultery. He said that she's committed zina. And the reason why he accused her of that was because she gave birth six months into her pregnancy. So he said this woman was pregnant before I got married to her. Because when he got married to her six months after that, he got married to six months after the marriage, she's given birth to a child. So he accused her of zina. And she said this woman, she got this child before me. So the hukum sharra'i was going to be passed on her. The Islamic law on this issue was going to be passed on her. Ali ibn Ali bin Hastin to speak on this issue. And he said that this woman, she's not, she's not what's been accused about her. Okay. So the question is how? Again, this is a contemporary issue. Yeah. He said that she can't give birth at six months. It's normal, it can happen. Okay, question is where did you get that from? So Ali ibn Ali bin Talib, he said that it comes from the ayah, Allah says that the pregnancy and the breastfeeding, Allah said it's 30 months. 30 months. The pregnancy and the breastfeeding is 30 months. Altogether. Okay. We already in our religion know, I mean another ayah we already know that the breastfeeding is 24 months. Okay. Because Allah said that the mother would breastfeed her child for two years. Two years is 24 months. So if you subtract from that 30 months, you subtract the 24, which is the breastfeeding. Yeah, you get six. That six is the pregnancy, right? So the Sahabas, they used Qawa'id principles. They used evidences. They learned how to utilize it. So any issues that we have, we can always do that. We can always find ahkam, jurisprudent rulings to respond to it. But it's just when we become distanced from the Quran, when we become distanced from the sunnah, and when we become distanced from the fiqh of the salaf, then of course we will. Okay, perhaps I agree with you on micro issues like pregnancy and internet and things like this. But we're also facing large macro issues that we're going through. For example, the allegiance of some Muslim rulers with non-Muslims and we have other things where Islam has really been attacked in the modern world. There's no doubt about it. Islam is being seen as a scapegoat and it's really been attacked by all fronts. And now we have certain issues of how we overcome these challenges. Do you honestly believe, with your hand on your heart, that sitting in a masjid reading books and going back to these classical books are really going to solve these real life issues that are in front of us right now? Nabila Ibrahim Sahib, one day he came into the masjid. He led Salatul Fajr and he stood up and he gave a khutbah after Salatul Fajr. And then he carried on giving a khutbah until dawn. And then he led dawn. And then he done a khutbah after dawn until asr. Okay. And then he led asr. And then he done a khutbah after asr until Maghrib. And then he led Maghrib. And then he done a khutbah after Maghrib until Isha. And then he led Isha, Salallahu Alaihi Wasalam. All of that, what did he tell them? The narrator he said, he told us what was. And what is going to happen? Salallahu Alaihi Wasalam. He told them about the trials and tribulations that are going to come. The sahabi, the narrator he said, hafidahu man hafidahu ma alimahu man alimahu wa jahilahu man jahilahu. The one who memorized it that day memorized it.  In other words, Nabila Ibrahim Sahib told them everything that they need. Your question here is that did Nabila Muhammad, did he leave us upon clarity in everything that we need? Of course I'm going to say yes to you. You're my question. I left you upon clear cut. I left you upon a wide road. The day is like a night. Meaning it's a road there's no night. It's a day. So the Quran and the Sunnah has all of the guidance we need. Even though we're living in a fast-pacing ever-changing world, we don't need any other guidance outside the Quran. Allah says, This Quran will guide you to the best of affairs. Of course it does. The messenger said, I have left with you something. If you hold on to it, you will never be misguided after me. The book of Allah and I left the Sunnah with you. So yes, everything that we will need is right in the book. And it's also in the Sunnah. I hear what you're saying about Salafiyah and Salafism, but isn't this just referring to a period of time that happened in the past? And I get that it was a very virtuous, amazing period of time. But it's gone. It's happened in the past, it's gone. We're now in a different period of time. Why do we still need to keep referring back to that? That claim is not new. It's not a new claim. It's not something new that hasn't been said before. When was it said before?  He says that it's a Marhala to Zamaniyah. Bulti said the same. Muhammad al-Sabbouni said the same. Many people said that. And the scholars of their time responded back to them. Ibn Ubaaz responded to that. Sheikh al-Albanin responded to that. Legend al-Da'ima responded to that. You know, Sheikh Muhammad al-Mussar al-Uthameen also responded to that. But the truth is that the Salafiyah madhab, as I said to you before, had a madhab that early scholars attributed themselves to it. And those who come after including Ibn Uthameen, he attributed himself to the Salafiyah. There's a Kitab written by Muhammad Khalil al-Harras. He called it Ibn Uthameen as Salafiyah. And in that book he mentioned that Sheikh al-Islam ibn Uthameen was a person, he and his students. They used to attribute themselves to Salafiyah. They used to call themselves, not calling someone else, like the Daraqutni example you gave. Yeah, they would call themselves Salafiyah. I mean, there's many scholars I can give you that call themselves Salafiyah. Like for example, Al-Imam al-Jazari, I mean, whether he was Salafiyah or not, that's another discussion. He called himself Salafiyah. For example, in his Kitab al-Hidayah, he says, He calls himself, Ibn al-Jazari, as Salafiyah calls himself. I mean, what's his name? Al-Imam al-Samaani has a Kitab called Al-An-Sab. This book is talking about people, what they ascribed to themselves. Okay. So in that book he says, Salafiyah, He says, And he said, It's a tribute to ascribing yourself.  Right after that, that statement of As-Samaani, As-Samaani, he died in 563 Hijriah. He's a sixth century scholar. Sixth century, okay. Sixth century scholar. After him came another Imam called Ibn Atheer, Ibn Atheer, he summarized the Kitab al-An-Sab by As-Samaani. He summarized it in a Kitab where he called it, Al-An-Sab. And he pointed out under the statement of As-Samaani, or he mentioned under the statement of As-Samaani, and he said, A group of people were known as to be Salafiyah. They were known to be Salafiyah. Nasr al-Dina al-Dimashqi, for example, has a Kitab called, I'll be honest with you, I'm not interested in these people who came after the fifth century, the sixth century, but he told me at the start that it's all about the first three generations. Do we find it in those three generations? The scholars that were called, they called themselves Salafiyah. For example, Imam, as I'm going to mention to you, Nasr al-Dina al-Dimashqi, for example, in his Kitab, he says, with a fatha, because he wants to get rid of the word As-Silafiyah. As-Silafiyah is different from As-Silafiyah. As-Silafiyah is different from As-Silafiyah. So he clearly says to you, And then he mentions Abu Bakr, Abdul Rehman, Ibn Abdullah, Ibn Ahmed, as-Sarghasi, as-Silafi. And then he said, So this man was the only Salaf time. Even before Ibn-Dalakso Ibn Mas'i, All the way, way before all of that. He said in that book, Nasr al-Dina al-Dimashqi said, this man, you can say, if you want, or you can say as-Sarghasi, as-Silafi. He said he heard from Abul Fatihaan Al-Ru'asi and he said وَكَدَا مَنِنْ تَسَبَئِ الْسَلَفِ And anyone like him who attributed themselves to the Salaf. Okay, fine. So we have narrations from people in the past very early on calling themselves Salafi and calling other Salafi and attributing them. Abul Qasim attaim in this Kitab al-Hujjah في بيان المحجّى so from the early scholars of the Salaf اللهم مستعانا على ما تصفون. Imam Al-Uza'i, he said statements that are also like that and similar to that which Ibn Qudama mentions in his Kitab al-Lum'a Okay, fine. So they mentioned that. So what is the exact ruling then? Is it you have to call yourself Salafi? Is it obligatory? Is it just permissible? No, it's not. You don't have to call yourself Salafi but it's something that's permissible if a person calls themselves Salafi that we should accept it from them by consensus. As I mentioned the statement of Sheikh al-Sami Taymiah where he says وَلَا عَيْبَ عَلَى مَنْ اَضْحَرَ السَّلَفِ عَلَى اَمَنْ اَضْحَرَ مَنْ اَضْحَرَ مَذْحَبِ السَّلَفِ لَا يَقُونُوا إِلَّى حَقَّى that if a person he said there's no blame on a person who shows مَذْحَبُ السَّلَف Okay, shows. and attributes himself to the مَذْحَبُ السَّلَف and calls to the مَذْحَبُ السَّلَف he says بَلْيَاجِبُ قَابُولُ ذَالِكَمِنُوا it is obligatory to accept that from him بِلِتِ فَقِبَ عَلَى مَنْ اَضْحَرَ السَّلَفِ there's no difference of opinion you accept it from him and then look what he said after that he said لَا يَقُونُوا إِلَّى حَقَّى because the مَذْحَبُ السَّلَف is not to accept the truth Okay so the مَذْحَبُ السَّلَف is the truth now and it's going to be the truth until the day of judgment as I said before سَلَف I'm a مَذْحَبُ السَّلَف it is the pure Islam and it will be until the day of judgment Okay, so as long as you have the مَذْحَبُ of the سَّلَف like the way of the سَّلَف you don't have to call yourself سَّلَف if you don't want to even though the الشيخ منباز رحمه الله تعالى he did say it was an obligatory statement like that he said الشيخ منباز رحمه الله تعالى Okay, but really the majority of you that is not obligatory upon you and it's just permissible Okay, fine why in the 21st century because obviously we're talking about scholars of the past here now we're dealing with issues that we live in in today's world in the 21st century you see the سَلَف is focusing on really obscure issues for example how do we interpret the names and attributes of Allah does Allah have a hand for example these aren't going to solve the real-life issues that we're facing in the real world we have much bigger fish to fry we've got much bigger issues to deal with why are so many سَلَف is focusing on these small obscure issues it's really wrong for a person to dismiss and also to undermine and to belittle to be honest things that great noble imams died for and Imam Ahmad was whipped for and he was imprisoned because of it it's very sad that somebody would be was imprisoned for and he was and great scholars Ahmad al-Khuzari and others they were killed because of it some great imams were killed because of the issue of Allah's names and attributes to undermine those great imams is really a sad reality to see people undermining that why would you need to undermine it why don't you say we also have new contemporary issues that also need to be tackled because that time is limited to start previous issues of Aqidah you can't undermine them there are issues that are really connected to even if you think about it Allah's names and attributes is the discussion of today it's actually what's coming up back and forth for example when people ask you know the concept of good and evil you're asking about Allah's actions subhanahu wa ta'ala so it's all interconnected it's all connected to our contemporary problems does Allah you know he do all of this evil when he's the you know the most merciful the most kind and he's watching his slaves being destroyed and this and that these doubts that Atheist are pushing forward it's all connected to Allah's actions and how does Allah do things and the concept of free will goes back again to Allah's actions subhanahu wa ta'ala and actions of the creation or whether Allah created the creation's actions so okay but how does Allah has a hand that affect anything anything in the modern world I understand we refute Atheist claims that are coming forward about free will and divine decree but no Atheist is talking about Allah's hand I mean it's a destruction from the real life issues it's not really because these are the concepts that Christians are discussing whether Jesus is a divine and a human at the same time and what are the features of can you be divine and can you be human at the same time you know these are attributes of Allah as we are discussing here right now you see they are life issues that I have brothers who are at the forefront of debating and discussing with Atheists they are at the forefront of discussing with Christians and they call me and they ask me questions to do with Allah's names and attributes give me an example Khallaq Allah Adam A.S. Allah created Adam in the form of Adam A.S. what does that hadith actually mean what's the correct understanding I get the asked and I always have to respond and I always have to respond and give explanations to that hadith are you with me that's Allah's characteristics and attributes here that Ibn Kuzayma wrote a kitab and discussed it you see Ibn Uqayyim mentions it in his kitab Muqtas al-Sawa'i Iqul-Mursala and Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Iqtayma mentions it in his Aqeed al-Wasatiyyah and great other scholars talk about so they're not trivial issues that the Salaf spoke about and now it's gone it's not taking no it's those issues if you don't understand your verdicts and your answers to these contemporary problems will not be correct okay fine why is there so much harshness that we see amongst the Salafis today that's a reality that can't be denied you see I'm not here to defend Salafis they can be right and they can be wrong Salafis but I'm talking about the Medhab see the Medhab is infallible the Medhab is free from errors and mistakes you see just like a Muslim cannot talk for the Muslims he can talk for Islam and the religion there can't be Muslims that drink there can't be Muslims that commit zina there can't be Muslims that cheat you see this concept of you know a person has to dismantle case by case situation where I have to talk about every single point in order for my argument to be valid it's it's not correct it's not fair it's not it's not looking at it in the right way I mean there can be people who attribute themselves to Salafiya but do wrong things who don't come with you know you know da'at and obedience you see Salafiya isn't just a'aqida issue Salafiya as I said to you is the pure essence of Islam so it enters everything it enters the way you deal with your wife and how you are to your wife and how you are to your neighbors Salafiya is that Salafiya is how you are towards your children Salafiya is how you are in terms of your Salah and the Jama'a and the congregation Salafiya is how you pray Salafiya is how you dress and this is the sad reality where there are some people today they saw the Salafiya you know community they saw some people attribute themselves to Salafiya who give so much importance to the outer appearance they give so much importance to the outer appearance which is wrong the person should first of all work on the inner inner essence of himself like his heart so they saw a people who've given more importance to the outer appearance whereas their heart is more tainted and so what did they do they then undermined the outer appearance right they went to the other extreme the other extreme so no Salafiya is that you work on both okay your outer appearance is good and it's upright and so is number one your inner essence your heart without a doubt one does not eliminate the other Allah said about the Jews and the Christians both parties the truth was amongst them they had elements of truth within themselves this group had a portion of the truth and this one had a portion of the truth here but each one was saying to the other group you know you're wrong because you're a Christian I'm going to take it from you and the Christians are saying to the Jew you're a Jew I'm not taking anything from you meaning they weren't taking the truth that was with these people okay okay final question before I move on to a topic that I really want to address which is the different types of Salafis that we see in the modern world but just before we get onto that another thing that is very very common is you often see Salafis having this really fanaticism towards Saudi Arabia is this part of Salafiya then to have a fanaticism towards Saudi Arabia or is this something that just the Salafis do I mean again it brings me back to the point I was mentioning which is you can't find Salafis do things and say things you can't see Salafis acting a particular way that doesn't in any way shape or form have anything to do with Salafiya itself the Medhab okay Munafiqid attributed themselves to Islam can we now then say this is what Muslims are like no you know that's the reality that's a point more proven so whoever you find we look at Medhab's Salaf we look at the methodology of the Salaf and we find that individual not in line with the Quran and the Sunnah he's not in line with how the companions were then what we say is you are not Salafi however much claims that you put forward however much you say you are Salafi okay because this is what Salafiya stands on these are the usul of the Salafiya this is the foundation of Salafiya so I can't defend individuals my job isn't to defend a particular sheikh or I'm not here to defend a you know a particular individual in the Dawah scene or something like that I can only speak for this Medhab you know a person who's alive no one can give them reassurance if you're alive you can do mistakes does that mean Medhabi Salaf is wrong yeah okay now I understand okay so I agree with you that just because someone calls themselves a Salafi or ascribes themselves to Salafiya it doesn't mean that they are necessarily following the right path of a Salafiya and they could have issues within themselves it doesn't mean that the methodology of a Salafiya or a methodology of Salafiya is free from that basically it's free from those errors and mistakes but we do see in the modern world different categorisations of Salafis whether we look in the Islamic world or more predominantly in the academic western world where people like Quinton Victorovics for example has separated Salafis into different groups and he comes with three main groups he comes with the purist Salafis who are really only concerned with the way the teaching Islam the way it used to be and they're not really involved in politics or anything like that then you have the politicos as he calls them who are again they call themselves Salafis they believe that the early three generations were the best of generations but they have a different methodology slightly to get to the same goal which is let's work with the political system and let's change the system from within in order to reach our goal and then you have the third group which is obviously the Jihadis which are well known as ISIS Osama bin Laden people like this are all three of these Salafis like Victorovics claims for example you see academics western academics for example their way of looking at Salafia is based on anyone who comes from for example Saudi Arabia is a Salafi by default wherever ideology he pushes whatever belief he has so all of these three all of these three groups if you look at who he named for each group like the Jihadis he Osama bin Laden because he's Saudi and the politicians for example he would choose Safar al-Hawali as Salman al-A'oud because they're Saudis and the purists for example for him it's the Mufti of Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Abu Nubaz and Ibn Uthameen and Sheikh Fawzan and others because they're all Saudis so for them Salafia is Saudi okay and that's incorrect I told you Salafia is the pure essence of al-Islam Salafia is before Saudi Arabia came into the picture okay Salafia is before even the da'a of Muhammad and Abdullah way before all of that way before Ibn Uthameen if Ibn Uthameen didn't follow the madhab with Salafi he'll be misguided you see this madhab is not individuals it's not you either follow it and this is his criteria or you're out you're not in it so what I mean by that is that belief where these are Salafis because they are from a particular land and that's what brings them to Salafia is a fallacy it's a mistaken belief an unreasonable argument but Salafi as I tell you it has also it has foundations yes we need to look at with all of these three groups which of those followed we need to look at which one of them followed the what Salafia considers it and what can Salafia is the usul and the foundations of Salafia so we look at Salafia stands on sincerity Salafia stands on follow the messenger sallallahu alayhi sallam and the third thing that Salafia stands on is a tizquia so we look at sincerity sorry a tizquia meaning tizquia is purification okay so we look at Salafia in terms of sincerity sincerity meaning Salafia is about tawheed oneness of Allah they don't associate partners with Allah in anything okay just like other Muslims so so far there's no difference no there are many groups that leave this concept we have many like grave worshippers okay fine yeah who achieve themselves to Islam who don't come with tawheed and I say sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity sincerity This is called, this is called the near of and the intention distinguishing between what is obligatory and what's voluntary. We're not talking about that one. We're talking about the second form, which is, which is Who are you doing this action for? Salafism, they're known for this. They don't do anything If I'm fair, I agree. The second foundation that Salafiyah stands on is they follow the Messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. They used to follow the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in any and everything. And how he lived, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the way he did things and the way he Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam preached and the way he, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam what he started with in his da'wah.   They follow the Prophet in his actions. They follow the Prophet in his da'wah. You see? So now we look at the politicals that he's talking about. The politicals are activists. Yes. They're just activists. They have no nashat ilmi. They don't have any, like, they don't have a say in the revival of the religion. They're trying to revive the religion, but they're doing it through activism. So they have the same end goal. That's my point. They're not reviving their religion. They're just working towards their position of leadership. That's really what it is. It's just, how can we get to power? They're working towards their own dunya needs, to be very honest with you, but they're cloaking it and they're, you know, making it look like that they're using the, you know, the sharia. That's what the politicals are, referring to. People who have a political, you know, objective and they want to get to a, they want to gain a seat. Okay. The one that's really gained traction is this term, Salafi jihadi. So Salafi jihadi. Let me, let me, let me give an example. Look at the politicals that he's referring to. Right. We saw what took place in Egypt. Those so-called politicals, when they came into power was a religion. The sharia was the Quran and the sunnah. Wallahi, the book of Allah was not judged by their deen. That wasn't what the, that was what was promised to the people, right? Yeah. No, they don't really care about that. They have no desire. They have no raghba, to be very honest. Once they get in power, Quran or the sunnah or this and that, because look, if you don't study the Quran or the sunnah, you have no knowledge of it. When you do get into power, what are you going to use? You're going to use the, what you know, right? As for the jihadis, which is the third group that he refers to as Salafis. Yeah. The jihadis are ones who've distorted the meaning of hukum shar'i. They've distorted the concept of jihad. What does jihad actually mean? You know, what does, you know, what did the Prophet do in Makkah when he was in Makkah?  Aqeem al-salatu wa atu zakat. Establish the prayer. Give the zakat. Don't fight right now. You're not in, you're not one who should fight. And the Messenger of Allah was commanded to do what?  That's how he did it. But he was also commanded to fight as well. But that was, that was a time in a context with a meaning and etc. That doesn't mean our religion doesn't have jihad. La shaka it does. Yeah. But it has an context. The Salafi will follow the Prophet in where he did it and how he did it. Agreed. The jihadis won't do that. Does that know what they're doing to the Salafi jihadists?  They've killed innocent women and children from within Islam. They've denied, the Prophet had covenants with the non-Muslims. Yes, he did, yeah. And he stuck to those promises that he made. For them, there's no promises. There's no huud. There's no mawatiq. There's nothing, none of that. The books, they written it. There are books that figure heads have written. Muhammad al-Makdisi has got articles and books that he's written about this concept. Abu Qatadi al-Falustini. Killed even women, he was saying. Even women. Where's he following the Prophet, where's Salafi in that? You see my point. Okay, so an average Muslim, for example, picks up the newspaper and he reads, and this is a quote from the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka, for example. It's a recent event that happened in Sri Lanka. More than the immediate ISIS threat, I further the argument that the larger issue seems to be the threat of the ideology of Salafism. What is a Muslim meant to believe when he reads something like that? He's meant to dismiss this claim because the reality is that these people are not Salafis. Well, you see, this is my point. EDL say the problem is Muslims. You don't accept that from them. So why should a Salafi... EDL say the problem is Islam.  Yes. You can't say... This newspaper is saying it's a particular brand of Islam. No, it's Salafism. This is what they call it. They're not alone in this claim. The Guardian have mentioned it. The Daily Mail have mentioned it. So why would they say that it's got something to do with Salafi? What reason is behind it? They believe that the jihadi, the fighting methodology, is something that was found in the early generations. To be honest with you, I don't even believe that they actually believe, or they know what the early generations of Islam are actually how they practice the religion. But they certainly see this ideology. And perhaps some of the people who are propagating this ideology are, for example, like you said, from Saudi Arabia. Or secondly, maybe their end goal is the same. I.e. their end goal is to revive the religion of Islam the way it was in the early generations. And this makes them Salafi. Okay, right now, due to it not being the topic that we're talking about right now, if you look at these statements that these people bring right now, like, for example, ISIS, if you see what they bring Al Qaeda before them and all the groups that existed before that, they quoted most things that they quoted were people who had nothing to do with Da'a Salafiyah. They, for example, quoted Sayid Qutub. Sayid al-Iman, for example, was one of the people they quoted. They quote. That's who they look up to. They read these works. These are the works for them that becomes the milestone. Ma'alim al-Sunnah. Ma'alim al-Tariq, sorry. Ma'alim al-Tariq, whatever is called. Okay. Written by Sayid Qutub. And others like that. These were the works that they use. They praise.  Useful Qardawi. He said, he said that the last stage, I mean, to be honest, he said the last stage of Sayid Qutub's life it's he said it's an extreme position of killing a bloodshed. Qardawi is an Ikhwan himself. He's the Mufti, he's the Mufti of the Ikhwan. He's admitting to that. That this is what Sayid Qutub was about. He mentioned that Sayid Qutub's Tafseer, when he wrote it first, he's Zilal. He rewritten it again and added things into it. Which he saw to be vital to mention because of Sayid Qutub is not a student of knowledge where he studied and he gained knowledge from it. His upbringing was not like Muhammad and Abdul Wahab's upbringing where he took from a scholar and he sought knowledge and he led, it's not like the upbringing of Al-Bani, may Allah be with him, or others where you would read in their lives where they studied. He wasn't. He was an activist. He used to listen to Abbas al-Aqadi He was a man who was if you look at him, he was an Ishtarakya communist in the beginning, Sayid Qutub. Do you see my point? And then he got oppressed and then he used his emotions and found the Quran and segments of the Quran to serve that. So what you're saying is that regardless of what the non-Muslim western academics claim, all the western newspapers claim, the people that they're calling Salafi, these guys are Salafi, those people themselves are actually almost freeing themselves from the claim by their actions, number one, because they're clearly in opposition to Salafiyah and secondly, even by some of their statements they're actually admitting that they're not Salafis and that is sufficient as a proof against the western academics. Yeah, I'm saying in Salafis you know, if many people claim something you look at what is the okay, you know, if Salafis I told you it has an usul, it has principles it has foundations, we need to look at those foundations. We look at when we look at the foundations of what Salafiyah stands on, what it means Salafiyah, then we say you're in, you're out, you're in, you're out, right? Yes. But not everybody who have different ideologies can not all be Salafis at the same time. Yeah, because it would be contradictory. I mean if a qadyani comes and says Narella Muhammad there was a prophet after him you know, people are going to be like, you know, sorry but you're not a Muslim qadyani. You're not a Muslim. He's claiming Islam. He's claiming Islam, he's saying I'm a Muslim. Is it fair to call him a Muslim? Because he claims it. No, otherwise anybody can claim anything. Okay, fine. To end this particular episode a final question I have for you is if somebody understands what you're saying as a Salafiyah or Salafi or Salafism being the authentic pure Islam taking it back to the early generations and understanding the religion the way they understood it. How does one become a Salafi then? I'm a layman in the religion but I understand what you're saying and I agree with you I want to become a Salafi. How do I go about doing that? Salafiyah doesn't need you to go and I always mention this, it's not and it doesn't require from you to go and sign a application and then wait for the approval of the application and then a membership a membership card is sent to your house and then now you are Salafi. It's not like that.  No, no, no. Salafiyah in simple terms is Al-Quran wa Sunnah bima alihi Salaf Al-Saleh The Quran and the Sunnah you understand on how the early generation understood it you act upon this religion you follow this deen in the way that the early generation understood it. You don't bring anything new, you do not deduct anything from this religion nor do you add anything to this religion which they have which they have added or which they have deducted from it ok Salafiyah is the pure Islam. It's not a group like the groups that are out there it's not like the group Tablighi which has a leader which has a heikal organization the permission has to come back from the main office and he gives up none of that it's not like Ikhwan and Muslimin where they have the more you go up the ladder the more you get into the circle and the more you find out what the real target is but the rest of the people are just the supporters like Hezboot Tahreer who are like that as well that's the Amir said and this said Salafiyah is not like that Salafiyah is anyone who is upon that which I and my companions are upon today that is Salafiyah and Salafiyah is today we suffer from two types of people Salafiyah is we suffer from two types of people and the messenger Salah al-Azim mentioned them the prophet said the prophet told us here there are three groups one is the saved group which are the Salafiyah the two remaining groups are the Muqaddila Muqaddila are those who deceive the Salafis they pretend that they are Salafis and they infiltrate them they are hypocrites they pretend to be like them they try to pretend to walk like them talk like them, be like them because the Salafiyah walks unique because he walks the way that the prophet walked the Salafiyah talks unique because he talks like the prophet spoke he carries himself in a unique way like what the prophet did they pretend to be like them they pretend to be with them they are supporting them and they are aiding them but then they are backstabbing them the prophet told us there is a third group which are the Muqaddila those who try to go against them directly and fight with them face to face the prophet told us deceive them and the Muqaddila those who try to go head to head with them the prophet told us they will not harm them until the hour comes they will always be and they will always remain so Salafiyah might look at a time that they are becoming weaker and they are becoming small but that doesn't mean they will go the glad tidings of the prophet is that they will remain they will remain until the day of judgment comes they will remain so I said that I had one more question but I also have another one to add on to that you are saying Salafiyah or being a Salafiyah is the truth and is the one saved sect what about when somebody attributes them for example being a Hanafiyah or a Shafiyah or a Maliki or Hanbali does that mean they are no longer Salafiyah now? I mean those these imams they were all the Salaf that we are talking about they attribute yourself to he said in the tarjama he said oh I see so they even used the two together he said both of them together he said it was Hanafi Salafi so a person can be both it's not just missing one from the other you can be a Shafi'i Salafi you can be a Hanbali Salafi meaning like just explain on that a little bit so someone is a Hanafi for example we already said that we are attributing ourselves to the three noble generation right well these scholars are from the three noble generation they are the Salaf that we are attributing ourselves to but when you tend to say Hanafiyah and Salafiyah you mean my is Aqidah to Salaf because many people have now come and attribute themselves to the Ash'ari belief and they attribute themselves to Anima Abu Hanifa or attribute themselves to Imam Shafi'i you're trying to say I'm upon the Salafiyah that Shafi'i was upon right I see understood very clear once again for joining me on the hot seat until next time I hope you enjoyed and benefited from that discussion please do share it with your friends and family members if you feel like they might benefit too and don't forget to hit that subscribe button below so you're notified of any new episodes check out www.thehotseatpodcast.com that's thehotseatpodcast.com on there you'll find a little bit more information about the podcast and you'll also have the chance to vote for which topic you'd like to see discussed on the show you can also ask questions on the website to the speaker himself about these contemporary modern day issues see you next time


So my beautiful people I am back with another out of the video and today I want to speak about the black knife tish and the mimic to your spirit summons which one's better Which one should you use today guys? I hopefully Can answer that question for you. How's it going guys? My name is DP Jane if you do enjoy the video Even though I could really help out and if you like what you see and want to see more be sure to subscribe Okay, so we all know the mimic to your spirit summon is an absolute Weapon of a ashes you can summon. It's as simple as that for a long long time It's been thought to be the best in the game because it basically summons you it mimics you down to 80 in regards to your health Your weapons your armor it even gets access to your potions It revives itself will not revive itself, but we plans its own health this and the other it's a great great Spirit summon what people like about it is it's a fact It's like playing with another player. It is that simple so playing with another player who you can program You program the mimic to you in regards to you apply what you want it to do What you want it to wear how you want it to work if you want it to use the comet as her Make sure you got the comet as her on make sure you're using a staff and you are good to go people Your spirit summon your mimic to you will then go ahead and use your comments around bosses It really is that simple now regards to leveling up the mimic to your ashes What I believe this does is raise its HP as well as damaging of the resistances because I have noticed Some attacks one bomb me or take a massive chunk of my health off that same attack does barely anything to my High-level mimic to you I also think it does get a little smarter because I won't lie when I first got my mimic to you Although he had an amazing weapon in my blood fang and he also had a staff for some reason He would switch to my torch and use my torch against enemies trying to breathe fire on them and just get absolutely Annihilated the more I leveled him up.  But yeah guys the mimic to you is an Incredible spirit summon, but anyone who hasn't got this yet and experimented with it I'll have a guide down below as to where you find this thing. It's relatively straightforward, but it's one I 100% Recommend you get in the mimic to you is unbelievable And like I said, depending on the way you play if you've got a tank build You have two tank builds in battle You can use your mimic to you if he's leveled up to tank even more damage taking the enemies Agro where you lay down damage from behind or from afar or whatever So yeah, there's way more options here with the mimic to you. They're basically endless The only downside to the mimic to you is it costs 660 HP to use to cast so a drain your health guys to cast this thing It costs no Focus points to use just that health. So make sure you have a health flask ready for when you summon this mimic to you Okay, so the one people are comparing it to one That's just getting a ton of popularity is the black knife teach now. This again is an Incredible spirit summon without that these two the mimic to you and the black knife teach are the two best in the game I've seen so far if there's one better I'm yet to find it although I do love my wolves But these two are like I said, just at this level is above everything else. I have used the black knife teach is actually One that's what I would say hardest to obtain It does require you to complete run his quest, which I've also made a complete guide on which you'll find link below Complete that quest and you'll gain access to an area where this is obtained from we first have to defeat the dude Who you actually summon so once you do run his quest you'll come to the moonlight altar And you go just slightly to the left to the ring leaders ever go We will summon him and you're going to his arena and you have to beat him to get this spirit summon Now once you have it guys, you will quickly realize that this thing is all pink for a spirit summon It is ridiculously all pink now It does cast a hundred and thirty two focus points to cast in which is by far the most I have seen It's crazy, but you are getting a lot of bang for your book here The thing about this boot summon and a difference between this and the mimic is this thing has its own kind of mechanics The way it moves the way avoids enemy attacks how it's hard to hit It's relentless. It just runs head first into battle It seeks out that prey and it takes them out It's also seemingly using the black knife, which is an amazing weapon Which has that bleed effect on it and when you watch it fight against enemies It does just drain their health. It's also a tank when leveled up to guys This thing is utterly brutal now. I know a lot of people will be saying you can easily just put their black knife in The hand of your mimic which I completely agree on you can do this But I can guarantee you it won't be anywhere near as efficient as when the black knife t-ish is using it It's just absolutely Bluto and in my opinion guys that is the main difference between the two the mimic tier and the black knife t-ish I mean the black knife t-ish is just way more relentless in battle. It just seriously is it doesn't matter What your play styles are like the mimic tier kind of plays reserve that first I mean it will get stuck in there's not too much ways about it We all know this we've all used it a ton, but in regards and trying to compare it to the black knife t-ish It's the levels below in terms of how relentless this is So like I said with the black knife t-ish having his own well mechanics in a way in which it moves goes about Shifts how quick it avoids and how hard it seems enemies find it to hit that with the added fact It only uses the black knife t-ish That's what it's programmed to use and it uses it to full effect I honestly don't think this spook summon can be touched in regards to what we know is in the game right now So the question is if I had to pick between the mimic tier ashes and the black knife t-ish Which one would I pick?  I don't have to but if I had to chase one of these first it would 100% be the black knife t-ish Yes, the mimic tier can offer some staggering things. Yes, it's super unique. Yes, it's more customizable Yes, you can do more things with it. Yes, it's probably more helpful in many more scenarios But in regards to damage output something efficient something relentless Something you want and know you're gonna get the black knife t-ish in my opinion is top of the chart for now And there we have it guys my opinions on the mimic tier and the black knife t-ish in my opinion Black knife t-ish is the better especially for the way I play the mimic tier though is also incredible And anyone who says that the mimic tier is better. I would not argue with you on that point I mean for the way in which you use it. It could be way more efficient for you Which I completely understand on that note guys the end of the video has arrived if you enjoyed it Leaving a like really helps out feel like what you seem want to see more out of ring be sure to subscribe and hopefully people I will see you on that next one


Okay, I will slowly start because I have probably more content than I have time for. My name is Florian Müller. I'm a technical lead at the SAP Cloud Platform.  I will go into some more details. And you're probably all here to see the demo actually working. Let's see if you can come to this agenda point. Talking about the agenda, introductions, what I'm doing here. Talking about the many services, many platforms, probably a problem that I already mentioned in the keynote. Then I talk a little bit about the service manager, a bit more in detail than I talked in the keynote. I will explain how we do instant sharing across platforms, something I just mentioned in the keynote, but haven't really talked about. I go a little bit more into details of the PeriPly project, and then I will talk about some of the PeriPly enhancement that we are doing for SAP. So I talked about plug-in stuff, and I will explain a few of the plug-ins that we are building for SAP to get an idea of what this is all about. Very quick, wrap up how the service broker works. Maybe we have an admin or developer, actually, talking to the cloud control or the service catalog based on which platform we are talking about, talking to the, well, making a request to the service broker to, for example, create a new instance or bind-in instance or something like that. The service broker will then somehow do stuff with the service to create, for example, the instance returns the credentials back to the platform, and the platform will present this credentials then to the application. For the rest of the talk, I'm not really interested in the application and the service part. I'm only focusing on this cloud controller slash service catalog and the service broker. So one platform, one service broker, not a big deal. Platform multiple service brokers, well, if you're talking about four service brokers, it's not a problem. If you're talking about hundreds of service brokers, like, we will eventually end up with the sub-cloud platform, then this gets more of a problem. If you add more platforms to that, then at some point it gets ugly, and our solution to that is the service manager. Basically, we are registering all the service brokers, not directly at the platforms anymore, but instead we are registering them at the service manager directly. We're also registering the platforms at the service manager. So this gives us a few advantages. First of all, if a new platform joins the environment and is registered at the service manager, the service manager can figure out which of the brokers should actually be registered at the platform itself. We can apply policies to it. We can filter the catalog, for example. For a Kubernetes cluster, we can somehow decide that some services shouldn't be visible, some plans shouldn't be visible. We can actually add stuff to it. We can add new plans and services, but I'm going into this a little bit later. We can apply other policies. For example, we can do simple quota checks. So whenever a platform wants to create a new instance, the service manager knows how many instances are already existing for a certain customer and then can do a quota check and say, well, you have to quote our five instances. You're trying to create your sixth one. I'm not doing this, so the broker will not even ask to create a new instance. So we can do a lot of stuff here. And this policy thing is really important for us. So we can actually have some SAP-specific logic in the whole flow. But I'm going to talk about the architecture a bit later, and then we can go into the details. The other thing that this gives us is instant sharing. A few typical use cases, one is you have a database created for a Cloud Foundry application and you now want to reuse this in your Kubernetes cluster for an application in the Kubernetes cluster. Now, I already hear people screaming and saying, you're doing it wrong. So this looks like you have two microservices and each microservice should have its own database. Yes, yes, that's true. But there are some scenarios where you really want to share the same database because the data in the database is huge and you don't want to transfer data back and forth. The database or the backend system might be expensive and you don't want to have two of them and so on. So there are use cases for that. The other typical use case is you have a message queue and both ends now need an instance of this message queue and while this instant sharing across the platforms gives off the ability to actually establish this connection. Instant sharing is already possible without a service manager, right? It's pretty easy. You create a service key and you somehow transfer the key to the other platform and then the other application can use it. But you basically lose control of all of this. Like for example, if you're deleting the instance, do you know who else is using it? No, because it's a manual process. So this is not something that scales. So instant sharing with the service manager works a little bit different. So all requests go through the service manager. All open service broker requests. I should mention that it's the open service broker request. We are not proxying any traffic between the application and the service. That's not our business, right? It's only the open service broker calls that go through the service manager. This makes it possible that the service manager tracks all the instances. So the service manager has always a complete list of all instances of all platforms for all services. So what we are now doing to enable instant sharing is we're adding a reference plan to each service in the catalog that should be shareable. Which means when we register a broker and there are services that should be shareable, the service manager will add to the catalog another plan for each of those that should be shareable that we call the reference plan. And this will then show up at the platform. So let's say for a Kubernetes cluster, it looks like this is a plan that doesn't really exist in the broker. It's a virtual plan, basically. So when we create a new instance with this reference plan, we need the original instance of the original idea of the instance that we want to share. Then the request goes to the service manager. The service manager identifies this as a reference plan. We store the mapping between the two instances and return success. So the broker is actually not involved in this whole thing. It's a mapping that happens within the service manager. And the nice thing about this is that the brokers don't need any special support for instance sharing across us. This just works with any broker. In fact, although we don't have to talk to the broker, we at SAP do that. So we will do that because that's not implemented yet. We will tell the broker that there is a new customer for this instance and how this works I will explain in a minute. Now in the target platform, there's now a new instance created with this reference plan. And for the platform, for the Cloud Controller, the service catalog, this just looks like an instance. So we can create a binding, get credentials for this instance, and everything works out. So there are some challenges with instance sharing. Who can share which instance bear? So here, again, we need some policies. And that's where we need the service manager as well to check those policies. And these are probably policies that are very, very specific to the Cloud Provider. So it probably looks completely different for IBM than it looks for SAP because the domain model and how customers are modeled and how permissions are work are different. So there's no one fits all solution. The second challenge is, who actually owns the instance? If I shared the instance, I know both the shared instance and the original instance are now owners of the service. Who can make updates to the service? So again, this is a thing for policies and very specific. If there is an owner of an instance, can I transfer the ownership? That's really interesting. What should happen? Well, that's actually the next thing. What should actually happen if I delete an instance? So if I delete the original one and the delete go through, I actually break all the shared instances. That's something I probably don't want. But maybe in some case, I actually want that behavior. If I delete a reference instance, well, the reference instance goes away. But does it mean I also want to delete the whole instance? What if I want to actually delete, want to get rid of the platform that originally created the instance, right? So I want to get rid of the Kubernetes cluster that created the instance. And while the others that have shared this instance still need access to it. So this whole instance sharing across platforms is actually pretty difficult. And the whole policy thing within or the whole plug-in mechanism that holds the policies in the service manager can solve that or, well, we can at least implement the policies that we need. Coming to the Pariply project that I also mentioned in the keynote, it's an open service manager implementation by SAP basically implementing what I've just talked about. We started in February this year to do that. It's written in Go. It runs on Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes. We are at SAP currently running it on Cloud Foundry. But in the long run, we will move it to Kubernetes probably. It consists of four main components, the service manager itself, a service broker proxy for Cloud Foundry and one for Kubernetes. And I will explain those in a second. And a command line tool. That's not really surprising. We have bi-weekly calls with interested parties. So if anybody is interested in this project, can just dial in and listen about what's happened, what's current status, what ideas, scenarios, whatever, we talk. And of course, the source code is on GitHub and you can take it and use it. As I mentioned in the keynote, it's working as it is. So you can take it, install it, and it works. It has no plug-ins, so it will not do any checks. So it will let everything through, which is good for testing, but probably not something you want in production. So the high-level architecture of the Perry People project looks like this. We have the service manager in the middle. We have service broker that we can register here. We have a command line tool that talks to the service manager API. The service manager API has basically two big blocks. One is more administrative, like registering brokers and platforms. And the other one is, and I mentioned this here, is you can actually use it to create instances, bindings, well, service keys, I should say. So actually, the service manager is itself a platform. So you actually don't need a platform down here to talk to brokers. We will use this in some use cases where we have a customer account, but this customer account has no platform attached to it. But still, we can create instances like a database or something like that. And in the later step, the customer can add Cloud Foundry, Kubernetes, and whatever, and then reuse it. I will talk about this bit in a moment, but let me start doing this stuff. For Cloud Foundry and for Kubernetes, I said we have what we call a broker proxy. Those two guys, these two green boxes that live in Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. So whenever a broker is registered at the service manager, this registration will hit the broker proxy. The broker proxy will then use the native APIs of the platforms, all the Cloud Control or the service catalog, to register itself in the name of the broker. So whenever the Cloud Control or the service catalog wants to talk to the broker, it actually talks to the broker proxy, which then forward the request to the service manager, which does its policy thing, and then forward the request to the actual broker. This works for Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes. We have implemented that, but there can be also other platforms. So this is just the open service broker API plus a few additional calls. So it's relatively easy to implement this for other platforms as well. And in fact, at SAP, we have two proprietary platforms where for one of those, we will probably do this. So this is completely open, and you can add platforms whatever you like. Another way of getting instances is this. We have some applications that do not run in a platform. For example, on a plain VM or somewhere else, and they also should be able to consume services. So that's what the service manager API is for. So the application will just ask the service manager, give me your catalog of services, then create me an instance, create me a service key, and so on. The difference between this API and the open service broker API down here is that when you create an instance through this path, then the cloud control of the service catalog are in charge of the instance. So the whole lifecycle of the instance is in the hand of the platforms. This means things like offer mitigation or something. The platforms are responsible for. If you choose this way, then the service manager is a platform, and the service manager is responsible for the lifecycle of the instance. So if something goes wrong, and offer mitigation has to take place, then the service manager will do that. So the application don't need to know about this. This is the more easy path to, while getting an instance, getting a binding. It also helps us if this goes away for some reason, because probably we don't control this. We still have the instances here. So if you have a service that costs you 20,000 euro a month and your application dies, we still in the service manager can make sure that we can get rid of this instance so that it doesn't cost you any money anymore. OK, so I talked about the server broker proxies, and well, there are, of course, alternatives of implementing this. But for SAP, this was the right choice because of the following assumptions. We don't want it to change any platform. So we don't want to change any cloud phone recode. We don't want to change any service catalog code. It should just work with what's available today. So we don't want to touch anything. It should also work if somebody brings its own Kubernetes cluster from somewhere else. We want to make sure that it works with that as well. We don't want an SAP Kubernetes cluster that is modified to support that. The second assumption is it should be transparent to the application of brokers. So nothing should change. So when we introduce the service manager into the mix, the application shouldn't notice. Neither old application or new application, it's the same thing. The native platform tools working, nothing has to change. The same is true for the brokers. We have tons of brokers, so we don't want to touch them all. So this should work without any change in the brokers. This is not 100% true. We have brokers that are tailored to Cloud Foundry. And those, of course, have to be changed. But those have to be changed anyway to work in the Kubernetes world. So whatever change is necessary has to be done anyway. The second or the third thing that is that the service manager is platform agnostic. So what does it mean? Let me jump to this slide again. So the service manager speaks as open service broker API plus plus thing. The service manager itself has no idea about Cloud Foundry or Kubernetes. So if you add another platform, it still works because of the service manager just serves an API that is well defined, but it doesn't know what Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes is. And connected to that is that we cannot call back into the platforms. So when we don't know what the platform is that we are talking about, we cannot make any calls back into the platform because we don't know the API. So there are, of course, alternative ways of implementing service brokers. It's possible to embed those into the service manager, just assume that you move these boxes right into the service manager, and then the Cloud Controller of the service catalog will directly talk to the service manager, which means that to register a broker while you still need to call this API of the platform, which in turn means that you need the credentials to actually do that, which also means that the service manager then have to have all the credentials of all platforms that are connected, which opens another whole problem space that we don't want to go into. So this solution looked better for us. The second option is, well, I explained already that the service manager itself is a platform. So we can create instances and service keys right in here. And theoretically, the service manager then could push the credentials into the platforms, however that looks like. The problem with that is it's not the same as creating an instance from the platform itself. So it needs adoption of the, however this is transferred to the application. So the application will not find, for example, the credentials in an environment variable anymore. It would be different. It's not a bad thing that it's different, but it would be different. And that would break, well, probably most applications. And we cannot really afford breaking all applications running on the SAP Cloud Platform. So although this would be an alternative, it's not an alternative for us. OK, plugins. I already mentioned that quite a lot. Every cloud setup is different. So all the policies I talked about are really different per cloud provider. So we cannot really put them into the open source project as well. Here's a template, and you just fill out this template that works. It's not going to work that way. So what we have are plugins. So plugins are compile-time plugins. Basically, you have to provide go code and implement a certain interface. A plugin is really mighty. It can read, manipulate, and read to service requests and responses. So every request and response goes through a plugin, and a plugin can look at it. It can change the request and response before it hands over the request or the response to the next plugin in the chain. And it can also stop the processing entirely. So quota management is one of the things. So one of the plugins finds out, while you are over quota, it can stop the request to create a new instance and send back an error message. So plugins are very, very powerful. Plugins can also call microservices. We have this case where we have a compiled plugin that just is a thin layer that calls a microservice somewhere else. This gives us different life cycles of the service manager and the logic that presents the policies. It can be handled by different teams and so on. So we have both options. You can tightly plug in into the service manager itself, or you can move out this code from a microservice. Both have advantages and disadvantages. But this makes plugins very flexible. To give you an example of the plugins that we are building at SAP, some of them are already existing, some we are working on. Authorization is one of those. So if you take the open source implementation, you will get authentication through OAuth that's implemented, but it stops there. If you want authorization, you have to build your own plugin to find out if this person that makes the request is actually allowed to do this. And this is, again, very specific to the Cloud Runner. So what we do in the SAP domain model and the permissions there is probably not transferable to any other Cloud Vendor. So that's why we're doing this. Context enrichment, that's actually an interesting one. When you create a new instance, the platform sends, as part of the request, a context object. The context object for Cloud Foundry looks like this. So say it's platform Cloud Foundry, here's your org, and here's base grid. For Kubernetes, it looks like this. Platform is Kubernetes, and you get a cluster ID in a namespace. In the end, brokers have to translate that to a customer. So now, if we do it like that, then the broker has to check, oh, this is a call coming from Cloud Foundry. I somehow have to turn the organization ID into a customer ID, or the Kubernetes call I have to turn a cluster ID into a customer ID. If you add a third, fourth platform, then you have to add to all the brokers again to make this transformation. So what we do instead is we have a plug-in that enriches this context. And then the rich context looks like this. The platform has changed. It's changed from Cloud Foundry Kubernetes to SAP Cloud Platform. We still have the origin. So if a broker really wants to know where this request is coming from, this is not lost. But we are translating the org ID and the cluster ID to a customer ID at SAP. So in SAP, we have basically two IDs. One is a global account ID, and the other one is a sub-account ID. So brokers at SAP just have to look at the sub-account ID to find out who the customer actually is. So if you add, at some point, another platform and yet just another platform, brokers don't have to change because they can rely on the fact that there is a sub-account ID that they can use. Also very SAP-specific, of course. The broker and service visibility and entitlement management are already talked about. So not all brokers should be registered at all places, not all services, not all plans should be visible to all clusters or organizations. If customers buy a service, then this, of course, has to be propagated down to the platforms. We want this to happen almost in real time. So if you buy something, you want to use it a second later. So things like that we implemented as a plugin as well. Platform-specific brokers, so all SAP brokers now have to provide the information for which platform they are built. So we can actually filter out where we actually have to register a broker. So if a broker tells us, I only really work with Kubernetes, then it's not registered at a Cloud Foundry foundation. Yeah, let's leave it like that. So simple quota check, already talked about that. So if a customer has four instances and you want to create your fifth one, well, this plugin will stop it. Network management, this is a topic that probably needs another talk. And I don't want to go into details, but we have services that are not reachable from the internet. So they're not publicly available. So at the time of binding, we have to create a tunnel between the application and the service. And the service manager is actually the guy in the middle who knows both ends. And while with a plug-in, we can actually create this tunnel, however that looks like. And it might be different based on what the source on what the target is. But as I said, this is a new talk. And then we have the instant sharing part. Yeah, so I already talked about this, the whole problem with instant sharing of the policies that we have to implement. There have to be somehow mapped into code, and that's what this instant sharing plug-in is for. So I think I'm out of time. The next step would be the demo. Before I do that, well, SAP hires, you probably know that. Before I do a demo, are there any quick questions? Or probably we have to leave the room anyway, so I can't do the demo. Any questions? There's one. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, of course. So actually, if you look at the content enrichment thing, this is actually pretty thin. So it just adds stuff to an object that flows through the service manager, so that's easy. But other things need some more work. But at SAP, we are not forking the project, right? So we are just building plug-ins for that. So we're using actually the code that's on GitHub and just enrich it with the plug-in that we need. But the plug-in framework itself is really powerful. You can do a lot of stuff with it. You can basically manipulate everything you like.  Yes, we are supporting both. So whatever you like, we are currently hosting it in Cloud Foundry, but we'll move it to Kubernetes at some point. But in the open-source project, you will see you can find manuals how to do this in Kubernetes or Cloud Foundry. So we will make sure that it also runs in Kubernetes. At this point, yes. So we are only doing this. But with generic actions that are in the works for some time in the open-source broker API, we will, of course, provide whatever the broker provides. So yeah, we just tunnel it through. And yeah, we can do more. Yeah, well, if I go back to this, so this API here can do a lot of things that the broker cannot do. For example, listing all instances or something like that. These are management capabilities that we can do through the service manager. If you're talking about things like more triggering a backup, for example, that's not in the scope of the service manager. But if the broker would at some point provide this as a generic extension, then it's, of course, available through the service manager itself as well. No, the basic service manager not, but no, you can write a plug-in. So you see everything that goes through the service manager write your plug-in to gather metrics, whatever you need. So that's what the plug-ins are for. Metrics is another thing where every company needs something different. So there's not one implementation that works for all. There might be at some point an example for that, how to do this, another that you can tweak. But yeah, we see this as a plug-in, not as a core functionality of the service manager. Not at this point. So we are in the process of rolling it out internally right now. It will be live Q1 next year. So we are migrating the first data centers to use this in January. Can you speak up a bit? I can barely hear you. So you're talking about where the service broke on where the service lives. So all the services that are available in Cloud Foundry today will then be also available in Kubernetes through this mean. Different, you mean this box over here? Yeah, so I think we have announced that we will have an ABAP platform for the cloud as well, or it's already there. This will at some point will be also able to consume all the services that we're providing to Cloud Foundry. OK, I think we are out of time. Unfortunately, no demo. I can demo in the hallway if you're interested. But yeah, sorry.