Salafism in the context of "Muslim sects"

Taqlid (Arabic: تقليد, romanized: Taqlīd) is a term used in Islamic jurisprudence to denote the conformity of one person to the teaching of another. As such, the person who performs taqlid is termed muqallid. The definite meaning of the term varies depending on context and age. Classical usage of the term differs between Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. Sunni Islamic usage designates the unjustified conformity of one person to the teaching of another, rather than the justified conformity of a layperson to the teaching of a mujtahid (a person who is qualified for independent reasoning). Shia Islamic usage designates general conformity to the teaching of a mujtahid, and there is no negative connotation. The discrepancy corresponds to differing views on the Shia Imamate and Sunni imams.

In contemporary Salafi usage, taqlid is often portrayed in a negative light and translated as "blind imitation". This refers to the perceived stagnation of independent effort (ijtihad) and uncritical imitation of traditional religious interpretation by the religious establishment in general.

The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah (People of the Prophet's Way and the Community) is a Sunni revivalist movement that generally adheres to the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, the Maturidi and Ash'ari creeds, a variety of Sufi orders, including the Qadiri, Chishti, Naqshbandi and Suhrawardi orders, as well as many other orders of Sufism, and has hundreds of millions of followers across the world. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and the Deobandi movement.

The Barelvi movement is spread across the globe with millions of followers, thousands of mosques, institutions, and organizations in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, South Africa and other parts of Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Islamic modernism is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response to the Western cultural challenge", attempting to reconcile the Islamic faith with values perceived as modern such as democracy, civil rights, rationality, equality, and progress. It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence", and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis (Tafsir). A contemporary definition describes it as an "effort to re-read Islam's fundamental sources—the Qur'an and the Sunna, (the practice of the Prophet)—by placing them in their historical context, and then reassessing them in the light of the modern context."

It was one of several Islamic movements—including Islamic secularism, Islamism, and Salafism—that emerged in the middle of the 19th century in reaction to the rapid changes of the time, especially the perceived onslaught of Western civilization and colonialism on the Muslim world. Islamic modernism differs from secularism in that it insists on the importance of religious faith in public life, and from Salafism or Islamism in that it embraces contemporary European institutions, social processes, and values. One expression of Islamic modernism, formulated by Mahathir Mohamad, is that "only when Islam is interpreted so as to be relevant in a world which is different from what it was 1400 years ago, can Islam be regarded as a religion for all ages."

The People of Monotheism may translate several Arabic terms:

• Ahl al-Tawḥīd (Arabic: أهل التوحيد), a name the Druze use for themselves. Literally, "The People of the Unity" or "The Unitarians", from tawḥid, unity (of God).
• al-Muwaḥḥidun (Arabic: الموحدون) is an Arabic term meaning "the monotheists". It has currency as:
  • the Arabic name of the Almohads.
  • the term used by the early followers of the 18th-century Arabian Muwahhidun movement of the reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab to describe themselves
  • a term that adherents of Salafism use to describe themselves.
  • a term that the Druze use to describe themselves.
  • a term that the Alawites use to describe themselves.
• Ahl al-ʿAdl wa t-Tawḥīd, "The People of Justice and Monotheism", a term used by the Mu'tazilis to describe themselves.

The Third International Theory (Arabic: النظرية العالمية الثالثة), also known as the Third Universal Theory and Gaddafism, was the style of government proposed by Muammar Gaddafi on 15 April 1973 in his Zuwara speech, on which his government, the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, was officially based. It combined elements of Arab nationalism, Islamism, Nasserism, anti-imperialism, Islamic socialism, left-wing populism, African nationalism, pan-Africanism, pan-Arabism, and direct democracy. Gaddafi further drew from Islamic fundamentalism; he opposed formal instruction in the meaning of the Qur'an as blasphemous and argued that Muslims had strayed too far from God and the Qur'an. However, Gaddafi's regime has been described as Islamist, rather than fundamentalist, for he opposed Salafism, and many Islamic fundamentalists were imprisoned during his rule.

It has similarities with the system of Yugoslav socialist self-management in Titoist Yugoslavia during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as developed by Edvard Kardelj. It was also inspired in part by the Little Red Book of Mao Zedong and the Three Worlds Theory. It was proposed by Gaddafi as an alternative to capitalism and Marxism–Leninism for Third World countries, based on the stated belief that both of these ideologies had been proven invalid.

Muhammad Nasir al-Din (born Muhamed Nasirudin Nexhati; 16 August 1914 – 3 October 1999), commonly known as al-Albani, was an Albanian Islamic hadith scholar (muhaddith), regarded as one of the prominent figures of modern Salafism. He was known for his rigorous re-evaluation of hadith literature and for rejecting adherence to traditional schools of jurisprudence. Al-Albani became a controversial yet influential reformer within Sunni Islam.

He was twice imprisoned in Syria for his teachings and later lectured at the Islamic University of Madinah at the invitation of Ibn Baz. He authored over 200 works, including Silsalat al-Hadith al-Sahiha and Sifat Salat al-Nabi. His reassessment of canonical hadiths drew both acclaim and criticism, earning him, among Salafis, the title 'al-Bukhari of the contemporary age'