Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī’s Treatise on Wiping over Socks and the Rise of a Distinct Salafi Method

Abstract

‘Modern’ Salafis of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century have much more in common with contemporary ‘puritan’ Salafis than claimed in recent scholarship. Indicative of this is the debate over whether it is allowed to wipe over socks during ritual ablutions (wuḍūʾ), a visual identity marker for Salafis. This is a recurrent theme in contemporary polemics between the four Sunni madhhabs and the lā-madhhabiyya current associated with Salafis. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī’s (1866–1914) treatise al-Masḥ ʿalā al-jawrabayn is a late Ottoman ‘modern’ Salafi forerunner of this debate. By placing this work in its historical context, this article demonstrates how al-Qāsimī used the issue to address fundamental questions of fiqh and ḥadīth methodology in the heated debate over ijtihād. Later Salafi editions with introductions and comments of Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (1892–1958) and Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (1914–99), show how his method influenced later ‘puritan’ Salafi scholars.