The renowned late Syrian ʿālim Shaykh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti (d.2013) has been called “the leading religious authority in the intellectual disputes in Islam about modern life”; no figure has represented the so-called “traditionalist” school of Sunni Islam in contemporary times as well as al-Buti. Known for his adversarial relationship with Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani and other Damascene Salafi ulama, al-Buti articulates a commitment to the past balanced by a sensitivity to the questions and challenges of modernity. A champion for the perseverance of a classical legal tradition, Al-Buti’s views raise dire implications on the place of religious authority in the modern age and the popularization of Salafi thought and practice. This paper will focus on al-Buti’s vehement stances against Salafism as seen through his writings, which center on two key tropes: refuting Salafi ideology by means of historical revisionism and decrying the dangers of “anti-madhabism” (known as la madhhabiyya) espoused by his ideological opponents. Most crucially, al-Buti relies on polemical tactics for his arguments to make the case for “traditional” approaches to Islamic legal sources as the premier epistemology for Muslims in contemporary times Through a textual focus on al-Buti’s anti-Salafi works as well as those of his Salafi counterparts, this paper will explore the emergence of “traditionalist” scholars out of modern debates over Islamic reform who lay claim to an “Islamic tradition” by deploying the polemical anvil of “illegitimate innovation” (bida‘a); a tactic generally wielded by his adversaries. I argue that argumentative polemics are certainly not a recent genre in Islamic legal literature. However, by possessing an awareness to the temporal element inherent in the modern epistemic shift, al-Buti’s writings serve as a lens to the emergence of a distinct category; an “Islamic tradition” that seeks to negate Salafism. At the intersection of competing visions of law and history, traditionalism has emerged as a key contender for religious authority in contemporary Islam.