Mazhab Wahabi

Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem

Sister if your message is that general in nature then i am sorry but it is not realistic, it espouses some sort of higher moral ground as if using a label of any type other than Islam or muslim is wrong when in reality that isn't the case.

Rasul allah [sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam] used to label his sahabah by many nicknames it was actually the custom of the arabs to do such things, Abu Bakrs name is not Abu Bakr, Imam Abu Hanifa did not have a daughter called hanifah. This establishes the general permissibility of labeling things although i personally think intellectually we have sunk very low as an Ummah to actually need a fatwah or ruling on using labels its just common sense.

when a person says his fiqh is hanafi its for practical reasons and to avoid confusion, just like saying in Pakistan you have the pakistani legal system if you want to visit that country you will come under the jurisdiction of the pakistani government and its legal system not the australian legal system where i am from. But since there is no more khalifah who rules by one of the four schools of thought the labels by default have become more personal since after the fall of the khalifah each individual was responsible for himself and he had to make shore he was personally living by Allahs laws in matters that normally the Islamic government should have been responsible for.

Since arabic is the language of the islamic religion you have to go by what the word madhhab means in that language you cant simply say the word means religion in my language and that is how everybody else is using it. The word does not mean religion in arabic and has never been the equivalent of religion it simply refers to the legal code itself that one subscribes to nothing more.

but what I am asking is, why the need to label yourself with a school of thought?

Sister the Uluma used to put what school of thought they followed in there last names, al Hanafi, al Shafii, al Maliki, al Hanbali you do it so people know what you believe or follow, its people that are the problem not the labels. A person can pick any label about anything and make trouble out of it...."hey your a woman they are all dumb"....and off we go with the sexist ignorant rants, now ask your self is there something wrong with calling your self a woman or is the person who chooses to make trouble the one thats wrong.

Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem

Sister chrysalis i would like to quote something from Mufti Muhammad Taqi uthmani's book "The legal Status of following a madhhab" as i think it gives a sense of history to this whole debate, i also think its relevant to my question to brother hamzah.

"There is no dearth of Books on the subject of Taqleed and Ijtihad and I had no idea that i would be writing anything on it. However, certain reasons compelled me to write down this treatise.

When in 1963, the editor of Faran, Mahir ul-Qadri, suggested that i should contribute an article on taqleed, I was disinclined to engage in debate on the question, as, indeed, my respected father, Mawlana Mufti Muhammad Shafi, always kept himself away from it. However, I acceded to his request in the hope that i might explain the issue and invite the warring parties to think coolly and cease to argue.

Praise belongs to Allah, the article was well received when it was published in 1963, in the Faran, and several other magazines of india and pakistan and some muslims of junagadh reprinted it and published it in the form of a booklet.

Nevertheless, though I had avoided a debate on the issue, the people, who disavow taqleed and reject that the imams of ijtihad should be followed responded with heavy criticism, Mawlana Ismail Salafi [ra] was one of them. His cristisism was published in al-I'tisam in its thirteen issues and then annexed to his book Tahreek Azadi-e-Fikr aur Shah waliullah Ki Tajdeedi Masa'i.

Another response came from a man who accuses the Imams of Ijtihad as inventors of Shariah and thier followers as infidels and polytheists and the islamic fiqh as self-tailored. It was entitled at Tahqeeq fi- Jawab at-Taqleed.

A third response was published in a monthly magazine of hyderabad Daccon."

Bismillah
Assalam Alaikum
Brother Rami, Barakallhu feek akhee
i think i have found the hadeeth
The Prophet PBUH said: i do not fear shirk from you.
the translators of hadeeth like Al Qurtubi said it was ment for the prophets Sahabah, also i found many hadeeth in which the prophet wards his Umma from shirk
examples:
The prophet PBUH said: (he who has sworn by anything apart from allah has commited shirk)
i have heard many people even where i reside now in Bahrain swear by the heads of their fathers, i have heard many other arabs swear by the lives of loved ones.

The prophet PBUH said: (he who has stopped doing something because he thinks it's a bad omen has commited shirk)
one of my friends never liked watching the game of his favorite team with me cuz he thought they always loose when he watches the game with me, i had warned him that this was shirk.

There is one hadeeth in which the prophet states clearly that the day of judgment will not come till a tribe called Daws which is a branch of Zahran tribe (the great hadeeth narrator Abu Hurayrah was from Daws), they will go back to worshipping an idol called THUL KHULAISAH who was a leader they used to worship when the prophets messege came.

Subhanal Allahum wa bihamdik Ashhad al Ilah Illa ant, Astagfiruka wa atoub elayk.

rami wrote: Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem  as if using a label of any type other than Islam or muslim is wrong when in reality that isn't the case.

Brother, I will try not to be self-rightous by saying its wrong. . . but if we insist on using labels, Muslim is by far enough for me, and says all I would ever wish to to say about myself, it is also enough to represent whom I 'follow', and to convey my beliefs, or tell ppl about my code of life. It also is in accordance with us being ONE Ummah, with ONE label, to enforce the brotherhood. Very humbly my own opinion.