Between Salafism and Traditionalism

Abstract

On March 12, 2015 Emad Hamdeh, a specialist in modern Muslim reform movements, Islamic intellectual history, historical pedagogical methods, and Islamic law, discussed “Between Salafism and Traditionalism: The Case of Nasir al-Din Albani and His Detractors” at the IIIT headquarters in Herndon, VA. He currently serves as an adjunct professor of Arabic and Islamic studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ. His doctorate (Exeter University, 2014) “The Emergence of an Iconoclast: Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani and His Critics” traced the origins of this controversial figure’s anti-madhhab polemic. Hamdeh began by presenting a brief overview of al-Albani’s life. He was born in Albania in 1914 at a time of increasing secularism. When he was nine years old his father, a traditional Hanafi, moved the family to Syria. While growing up, he studied under his father and with local religious schol- 156 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences ...