Albani was a proponent of Salafism, and is considered one of the movement's primary figureheads in the 20th century. Albani criticized the four mainstream schools of Islamic law and rejected the traditional Sunni view that Muslims should automatically turn to a Madhhab for fiqh (jurisprudence). Instead, he spent much of his life critically re-evaluating hadith literature and felt that numerous previously accepted hadiths were unsound. This led him to produce rulings that were at odds with the Islamic majority. Although Salafism has frequently been associated with Wahhabism, Albani distinguished between the two movements, and he criticized the latter while supporting the former. He had a complex relationship to each movement.