The salafis made happy...

A friend of mine pointed out a discussion on a list regarding Umar's series on the rise and fall of salafi da'wah in the US.

The moderator of the list wrote some disparaging comments about Umar's series, to which one response was:

"May Allah reward you O [name-removed], as you are among those who is well aware of - first hand - the many matters that were written about, by this one who was not aware [he's speaking about Umar here], rather this one who followed the "what has been said" of it, and I also, was witness along with you in your presence sometimes, and not other times, to much of that."

Taken on its own this response doesn't stand out as interesting or remarkable in anyway. But unfortunately, this kind of exchange where the followers rush to show their agreement with their leader/shaikh/speaker characterises most of the discussion on this topic amongst the semi-super-salafis, and it reminded me of the Dufflepuds from CS Lewis' "The voyage of the Dawn Treader". Here's an extract:

Nevertheless, only a few feet away from her, a voice spoke. And what it said was:
"Mates, now's our chance."

Instantly a whole chorus of other voices replied "Hear him. Hear him. 'Now's our chance', he said. Well done, Chief. You never said a truer word."

"What i say" continued the first voice, "is get down to the shore between them and their boat, and let every mother's son look to his weapons. Catch 'em when they try to put to sea."

"Eh, thats the way," shouted all the other voices. "You never made a better plan, Chief. Keep it up, Chief. You couldn't have a better plan than that."

"Lively, then mates, lively," said the first voice. "Off we go."

"Right again Chief," said the others. "couldn't have a better order. Just what we were going to say ourselves. Off we go."

No body mention "groupthink"... You can read Umar's response here.

Link: What is authentic Islamic scholarship?