A Report on Safar al-Halwali’s religious ideologies

The so-called Saudi theologian Safar al-Halwali who is deeply touched by the doctrines of Salafism, one of the most influential movements of the Islamic world today, started to express his own ideas on issues like Tawhid or monotheism in Islam. He divides Tawhid to the three following categories: Tawheed Ar-Ruboobiyyah (or The Unity of Allah’s Lordship), Tawheed Al-Uloohiyyah (or The Unity of Allah’s Worship), Tawheed Al-Asmaa’ Was-Sifaat (or The Unity of Allah’s names and Attributes). His position on Tawheed Ar-Ruboobiyyah (or The Unity of Allah’s Lordship) is merely dependent on Tawheed Al-Uloohiyyah (or The Unity of Allah’s Worship) the moment it comes to discuss about it. Speaking about Tawheed Al-Uloohiyyah he believes that, one of the most noticeable of all things that Prophets ever brought for their people is the Tawheed Al-Uloohiyyah which needs Tawheed Ar-Ruboobiyyah to work together. Safar al-Halwali is a literalist when it comes to The Unity of Allah’s names and Attributes, focusing only on the written texts instead of doing the job of paraphrasing them.  There are Many points of contentions between us and him where he talks about Allah’s self-described or external attributes (informative attributes). While through his theory he rejects any mankind’s resemblance to the creator, still he believes in the literal representation of attributes and names linked to Allah. He goes on to mention that Allah’s Intrinsic and Essential Attributes plus attributes which describe his actions are all eternal. On the concept of proving the authenticity of Prophets, he suggests that just miracles would not be something with which we can examine the truth, but for that matter we can look into prophet’s life and traditions too. Safar al-Halwali as a salafi scholar goes on to mention the reasons behind his affiliations (Salafism) and such claims, like his attitudes on literalism. On the issue of Jihad, he adopted a different position, rather radical, which led to his imprisonment in Saudi Arabia. To sum up, we can say that he is a radical salafi scholar with a jihadist notion that contributed a lot to Salafism movements.