Academic literature on the topic 'Salafism'

The importance of Salafism, both in the Muslim world and in Europe, has been quickly grasped by scholars and by governments, and some excellent studies of Salafism in individual countries have been published. Methodological and analytical problems, however, remain. One problem is defining the topic: what is and what is not Salafi? Classification is not assisted by internal divisions within the Salafi movement that result in disagreement among Salafis themselves as to who and what is and is not Salafi, nor by the way in which Salafis do not always describe themselves as Salafi, often preferring ahl al-sunna wa’l-jama’a, sometimes shortened to plain “Sunni,” terms which could, of course, describe almost any non-Shi’i Muslim. A related problem is that the term “Salafi” is sometimes applied by outsiders with little justification, often in the press, but also by authorities such as Hillel Fradkin, director of the Center for Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World at the Hudson Institute, a “conservative” American think tank, who classified the Muslim Brotherhood as Salafi, on the basis that they were part of “the worldwide Islamic phenomenon and movement variously known as Islamism, Salafism, radical Islam, militant Islam, political Islam and the like.”

Albeit sharing “Salafism” in name, Jihadi Salafist movement is different from the mainstream Salafism in multiple respects. Among others, it’s Fiqh (jurisprudence) distinguishes it from other Salfi strands, since Jihadi Salafist established their own underlying fiqh principles. To put it into perspective, their understanding of Salafist jurisprudence principles is characterized by three main features: firstly, it serves collective actions and social agitation; secondly, it excuses its proponents’ autonomous actions: and finally, it theorizes individual instead of institutionalized actions. This study hypothesizes that the Jihadi Salafist movement tends to advance these actions in the light of revisiting the all-important principles of ijtihad, tawhid, iman, tazkya. While complying with official institutes issuing fatwa (religious edict) and dominant social and political order and its gradual amendment is prescribed by Salafism fiqh, Jihadi Salafism demands abiding by Quran and Sunna, and encourages abolishing official institutes in favor of collective and violent actions. The current paper aims to explore Salafists’ atypical understanding of main Salafist theoretical principles and its impact on proceedings and violence in Jihadi Salafist movement.

Tulisan geneologi dan gerakan militansi salafi jihadi kontemporer ini, berusaha menjelaskan bagaimana suatu ide tertentu dalam salafi-jihadisme muncul, tipologi dan doktrin jihad salafism, dinamika gerakan jihad salafism dan karakteristik yang menentukannya. Tulisan ini juga akan menjelaskan cara yang unik dan berbeda yang mana para salafi-jihadis memahami, mengembangkan atau menterjemahkan ide-ide tersebut yang berbeda dengan bagaimana kelompok Muslim yang lain mempersepsikan ide tersebut melalui sebuah gerakan. Salafisme sendiri menurut penulis adalah sebuah konsep yang masih terlalu luas untuk dimaknai. Penulis mengutip perkataan Bernard Haykel bahwa Istilah salafi, dan hal-hal lain yang dikaitkan dengannya, masih belum didefinisikan dengan baik dan sering difahami secara salah dalam banyak literatur tentang pergerakan ini, dan dalam kajian Islam yang lebih umum. Dalam konstruksinya yang paling sederhana, salafisme Mengacu pada para pendahulu yang sholih dari tiga generasi awal Muslim. Karena itu salafisme adalah pandangan keagaaman yang menginginkan untuk menghidupkan kembali praktek-praktek tiga generasi awal Islam yang secara kolektif dikenal sebagai as-salafush shalihin. Penulis menjelaskan adanya banyak opini yang berbeda dari para ilmuwan tentang karakteristik tertentu yang secara presisi mendefinisikan gerakan salafi-jihadi sebagai sebuah kesatuan, yang merupakan salah satu bagian dari spektrum salafi yang luas. Dengan mengacu dan mengkompromikan pendapat yang berbeda dari para ilmuwan, penulis berpendapat bahwa ada lima ciri/fitur mendasar dari gerakan salafi-jihadi yaitu: tauhid, hakimiyyah, wala’ wal baro’, jihad, dan takfir. Kelima ciri ini dipilih berdasarkan arti pentingnya terhadap gerakan salafi-jihadi.

This article examines how use of the Prophet Muḥammad’s Khuṭbat al-ḥāja (Sermon of Necessity) became a distinguishing marker of Salafism. To understand the Sermon’s role, the article draws on the notion of “coded language,” messages that communities use to communicate with insiders while excluding outsiders. The article analyzes the content of the Sermon and describes its spread among Salafīs. The Sermon was championed by Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (1914-99), who played a pivotal role in shaping Salafī practice. Relating the Sermon’s spread to methodological debates about studying Salafism, the article suggests that the Sermon furnishes one empirical criterion that can be used to date Salafism’s crystallization to the mid-twentieth century. The article closes by examining how jihādīs selectively use the Sermon to “Salafize” their speech, and by discussing how instances of opposition to the Sermon’s use were connected to debates over the validity of Salafism and the status of al-Albānī.

Abstract The special issue “Empirical Approaches to Salafism: Methodological and Ethical Challenges” addresses urgent methodological and ethical issues in qualitative research on Salafism. The contributing authors discuss these in relation to their fieldwork on Salafi beliefs, practices, life courses and world views. The contributions problematize the limits of the usual academic definitions of Salafism by confronting the conventional categories of quietist, political and jihadist Salafism with first-hand field data. Thereby, the authors show how categorial lines begin to blur and to shift when exposed to the ambiguous and dynamic characteristics that are inherent to virtual and real-life fieldwork with Salafis.

This article aims to explain the ideas and the significance of Dr. Bilal Philips, a prominent ‘Salafi‘preacher, a major proponent of Neo-Traditional Salafism, and how his writings and activities can aid us in understanding the dynamics regarding the nature of Salafism in the West as a discursive tradition with deep roots in the Islamic intellectual history, as well as an element of global Salafi movements. As such, the article focuses primarily on identifying and analyzing Philips’ ideas on what constitutes a proper approach to interpreting the Qur’ān and Sunna in the light of the Islamic legal and exegetical tradition. After discussing the reasons why the ideas of Philips are significant for understanding Salafism in the West, the article focuses on his views on the conceptual relationship between sunna and hadīth, the broader hermeneutic characterization of the main four Sunni schools of thought (madhāhib), and issues pertaining to the correct methodology of Qur’ānic exegesis (tafsīr). The article also discusses the internal factionalism and the contentedness of the category of Salafism among western Salafis by examining one critique levelled at Philips by his fellow Salafis residing in the West, with the view of not only understanding and situating the views of Philips more accurately but also to provide an avenue to understand the internal Salafi dynamics in the West in particular.

AbstractWhat shape does Salafism take in Tunisia after the ban of the Salafi-Jihadi group Ansar al-Shari‘a and the wave of securitization carried out by national authorities? This article argues that a constraining legal context put Salafism's doctrinal rigidity in tension with its survival and ultimately prompted a residual current of Salafi actors to accommodate their stance toward Malikism, the prevalent school (madhhab) in the country. This adaptation is at odds with contemporary Salafism, which traditionally dismisses all four law schools (lā madhabiyya), rejects their blind imitation (taqlῑd), and claims the superiority of the Qur'an, hadith, and consensus of the salaf (pious predecessors) over jurisprudence (fiqh). To account for this puzzle, this article scrutinizes the historical development of Salafism and the evolution of its stance toward Malikism across three generational waves. It notably shows how religious securitization associated with the promotion of a “moderate” Islam pushed Salafi actors to redefine their ideology to preserve their preaching and teaching activities. We call Salafi-Malikism the outcome of this adaptive strategy. Drawing on the Tunisian case, we argue that, despite its purist claims, Salafism is not an immutable religious current, but can take different trajectories to survive in constraining environments.

Salafism has developed into different interpretations and understandings. Every da’wah movement claims to follow Salafi way of its own interpretation. This study aims at portraying one of Salafi understandings and its Salafi da’wah. This research used literature review to reconstruct the model of first emerging da’wah according to Shaikh Muhammad Al-Ghazali, a 20th century da’wah thinker and practicioner. It used his works that are supposed to bear objective, original views, and understanding on Salafism and Salafi da’wah. The study shows that since the time of the prophet the core characteristics of Salafi da’wah are criticism, constructivism, and moderation. Salafisme telah berkembang menjadi beragam interpretasi dan pemahaman. Setiap gerakan dakwah mengklaim mengikuti cara Salafi dalam interpretasinya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menggambarkan salah satu pemahaman Salafi dan dakwah Salafi. Penelitian ini menggunakan analisis literatur untuk merekonstruksi model pertama kemunculan dakwah menurut Shaikh Muhammad Al-Ghazali, seorang pemikir dan praktisi dakwah abad ke-20. Ia menggunakan karya-karyanya yang seharusnya memiliki pandangan objektif, asli, dan pemahaman tentang Salafisme dan dakwah Salafi. Studi ini menunjukkan bahwa sejak masa nabi, karakteristik inti dari dakwah Salafi adalah kritis, konstruktivisme, dan moderasi.

The global spread of Salafism, though it began in the 1960s and 1970s, only started to attract significant attention from scholars and analysts outside of Islamic studies as well as journalists, politicians, and the general public following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda Central. After the attacks, Salafism—or, as it was pejoratively labeled by its critics inside and outside of the Islamic tradition, “Wahhabism”—was accused of being the ideological basis of all expressions of Sunni militancy from North America and Europe to West and East Africa, the Arab world, and into Asia. According to this narrative, Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Za- wahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other Sunni jihadis were merely putting into action the commands of medieval ‘ulama such as Ibn Taymiyya, the eighteenth century Najdi Hanbali Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and modern revolutionary ideologues like Sayyid Qutb and ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam. To eradicate terrorism, you must eliminate or neuter Salafism, say its critics. The reality, of course, is far more complex than this simplistic nar- rative purports. Salafism, though its adherents share the same core set of creedal beliefs and methodological approaches toward the interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith and Sunni legal canon, comes in many forms, from the scholastic and hierarchical Salafism of the ‘ulama in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries to the decentralized, self-described Salafi groups in Europe and North America who cluster around a single char- ismatic preacher who often has limited formal religious education. What unifies these different expressions of Salafism is a core canon of religious and legal texts and set of scholars who are widely respected and referenced in Salafi circles. Thurston grounds his fieldwork and text-based analysis of Salafism in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and home to one of the world’s largest single Muslim national populations, through the lens of this canon, which he defines as a “communally negotiated set of texts that is governed by rules of interpretation and appropriation” (1). He argues fur- ther that in the history of Nigerian Salafism, one can trace the major stages that the global Salafi movement has navigated as it spread from the Arab Middle East to what are erroneously often seen as “peripheral” areas of the Islamic world, Africa and parts of Asia. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in Nigeria including interviews with key Nigerian Salafi scholars and other leading figures as well as a wide range of textual primary sourc- es including British and Nigerian archival documents, international and national news media reports, leaked US embassy cables, and a significant number of religious lectures and sermons and writings by Nigerian Salafis in Arabic and Hausa. In Chapter One, Thurston argues that the Salafi canon gives individ- ual and groups of Salafis a sense of identity and membership in a unique and, to them, superior religious community that is linked closely to their understanding and reading of sacred history and the revered figures of the Prophet Muhammad and the Ṣaḥāba. Salafism as an intellectual current, theology, and methodological approach is transmitted through this can- on which serves not only as a vehicle for proselytization but also a rule- book through which the boundaries of what is and is not “Salafism” are determined by its adherents and leading authorities. The book’s analytical framework and approach toward understanding Salafism, which rests on seeing it as a textual tradition, runs counter to the popular but problematic tendency in much of the existing discussion and even scholarly literature on Salafism that defines it as a literalist, one-dimensional, and puritani- cal creed with a singular focus on the Qur’an and hadith canon. Salafis, Thurston argues, do not simply derive religious and legal rulings in linear fashion from the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunna but rather engage in a co- herent and uniform process of aligning today’s Salafi community with a set of normative practices and beliefs laid out by key Salafi scholars from the recent past. Thurston divides the emergence of a distinct “Salafi” current within Sunnis into two phases. The first stretches from 1880 to 1950, as Sun- ni scholars from around the Muslim-majority world whose approaches shared a common hadith-centered methodology came into closer contact. The second is from the 1960s through the present, as key Salafi institutions (such as the Islamic University of Medina and other Saudi Salafi bodies) were founded and began attracting and (perhaps most importantly) fund- ing and sponsoring Sunni students from countries such as Nigeria to come study in Saudi Arabia, where they were deeply embedded in the Salafi tra- dition before returning to their home countries where, in turn, they spread Salafism among local Muslims. Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, as with other regions such as Yemen’s northern Sa‘ada governorate, proved to be a fertile ground for Salafism in large part because it enabled local Muslims from more humble social backgrounds to challenge the longtime domi- nance of hereditary ruling families and the established religious class. In northern Nigeria the latter was and continues to be dominated by Sufi or- ders and their shaykhs whose long-running claim to communal leadership faced new and substantive theological and resource challenges following the return of Nigerian seminary students from Saudi Arabia’s Salafi scho- lastic institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s. In Chapters Two and Three, Thurston traces the history of Nigerian and other African students in Saudi Arabia, which significantly expanded following the 1961 founding of the Islamic University of Medina (which remains the preeminent Salafi seminary and university in the world) and after active outreach across the Sunni Muslim world by the Saudi govern- ment and Salafi religious elite to attract students through lucrative funding and scholarship packages. The process of developing an African Salafism was not one-dimensional or imposed from the top-down by Saudi Salafi elites, but instead saw Nigerian and other African Salafi students partici- pate actively in shaping and theorizing Salafi da‘wa that took into account the specifics of each African country and Islamic religious and social envi- ronment. In Nigeria and other parts of West and East Africa, this included considering the historically dominant position of Sufi orders and popular practices such as devotion to saints and grave and shrine visitation. African and Saudi Salafis also forged relationships with local African partners, in- cluding powerful political figures such as Ahmadu Bello and his religious adviser Abubakar Gumi, by attracting them with the benefits of establishing ties with wealthy international Islamic organizations founded and backed by the Saudi state, including the Muslim World League. Nigerian Salafis returning from their studies in Saudi Arabia actively promoted their Salafi canon among local Muslims, waging an aggressive proselytization campaign that sought to chip away at the dominance of traditional political and religious elites, the Sufi shaykhs. This process is covered in Chapter Four. Drawing on key sets of legal and exegetical writ- ings by Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and other Salafi scholars, Nigerian Salafis sought to introduce a framework—represented by the canon—through which their students and adherents approach re- ligious interpretation and practice. By mastering one’s understanding and ability to correctly interpret scripture and the hadith, Salafis believe, one will also live a more ethical life based on a core set of “Salafi” principles that govern not only religious but also political, social, and economic life. Salaf- ism, Thurston argues, drawing on the work of Terje Østebø on Ethiopian Salafism, becomes localized within a specific environment.As part of their da‘wa campaigns, Nigerian Salafis have utilized media and new technology to debate their rivals and critics as well as to broad- en their own influence over Nigerian Muslims and national society more broadly, actions analyzed in Chapter Five. Using the Internet, video and audio recorded sermons and religious lectures, books and pamphlets, and oral proselytization and preaching, Nigerian Salafis, like other Muslim ac- tivists and groups, see in media and technology an extension of the phys- ical infrastructure provided by institutions such as mosques and religious schools. This media/cyber infrastructure is as, if not increasingly more, valuable as the control of physical space because it allows for the rapid spread of ideas beyond what would have historically been possible for local religious preachers and missionaries. Instead of preaching political revo- lution, Nigerian Salafi activists sought to win greater access to the media including radio airtime because they believed this would ultimately lead to the triumph of their religious message despite the power of skeptical to downright hostile local audiences among the Sufi orders and non-Salafis dedicated to the Maliki juridical canon.In the realm of politics, the subject of Chapter Six, Nigeria’s Salafis base their political ideology on the core tenets of the Salafi creed and canon, tenets which cast Salafism as being not only the purest but the only true version of Islam, and require of Salafis to establish moral reform of a way- ward Muslim society. Salafi scholars seek to bring about social, political, and religious reform, which collectively represent a “return” to the Prophet Muhammad’s Islam, by speaking truth to power and advising and repri- manding, as necessary, Muslim political rulers. In navigating the multi-po- lar and complex realm of national and regional politics, Thurston argues, Nigerian Salafi scholars educated in Saudi Arabia unwittingly opened the door to cruder and more extreme, militant voices of figures lacking the same level of study of the Salafi canon or Sunni Islam generally. The most infamous of the latter is “Boko Haram,” the jihadi-insurgent group today based around Lake Chad in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger, which calls itself Jama‘at Ahl al-Sunna li-l-Da‘wa wa-l-Jihad and is led by the bombastic Abubakar Shekau. Boko Haram, under the leadership first of the revivalist preacher Mu- hammad Yusuf and then Shekau, is covered at length in the book’s third and final part, which is composed of two chapters. Yusuf, unlike mainstream Nigerian Salafis, sought to weaponize the Salafi canon against the state in- stead of using it as a tool to bring about desired reforms. Drawing on the writings of influential Arab jihadi ideologues including Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and the apocalyptic revolutionary Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, the lat- ter of whom participated in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Yusuf cited key Salafi concepts such as al-walā’ min al-mu’minīn wa-l-bara’ ‘an al-kāfirīn (loyalty to the Believers and disavowal of the Disbelievers) and beliefs about absolute monotheism (tawḥīd) as the basis of his revival- ist preaching. Based on these principle, he claimed, Muslims must not only fulfill their ritual duties such as prayer and fasting during Ramadan but also actively fight “unbelief” (kufr) and “apostasy” (ridda) and bring about God’s rule on earth, following the correct path of the community of the Prophet Abraham (Millat Ibrāhīm) referenced in multiple Qur’anic verses and outlined as a theological project for action by al-Maqdisi in a lengthy book of that name that has had a profound influence on the formation of modern Sunni jihadism. Instead of seeing Boko Haram, particularly under Shekau’s leadership, as a “Salafi” or “jihadi-Salafi” group, Thurston argues it is a case study of how a group that at one point in its history adhered to Salafism can move away from and beyond it. In the case of Shekau and his “post-Salafism,” he writes, the group, like Islamic State, has shifted away from the Salafi canon and toward a jihadism that uses only stripped-down elements from the canon and does so solely to propagate a militaristic form of jihad. Even when referencing historical religious authorities such as Ibn Taymiyya, Thurston points out, Boko Haram and Islamic State leaders and members often do so through the lens of modern Sunni jihadi ideologues like Juhay- man al-‘Utaybi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, figures who have come to form a Sunni jihadi canon of texts, intellectuals, and ideologues. Shekau, in short, has given up canonical Salafism and moved toward a more bombastic and scholastically more heterodox and less-Salafi-than- jihadi creed of political violence. Thurston also pushes back against the often crude stereotyping of Af- rican Islamic traditions and movements that sees African Muslims as being defined by their “syncretic” mix of traditional African religious traditions and “orthodox” Islam, the latter usually a stand-in for “Arab” and “Middle Eastern” Islam. Islam and Islamic movements in Africa have developed in social and political environments that are not mirrors to the dominant models of the Arab world (in particular, Egypt). He convincingly points out that analysis of all forms of African Islamic social and political mobi- lization through a Middle East and Egypt-heavy lens obscures much more than it elucidates. The book includes useful glossaries of key individuals and Arabic terms referenced in the text as well as a translation of a sermon by the late, revered Salafi scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani that is part of the mainstream Salafi canon. Extensive in its coverage of the his- tory, evolution, and sociopolitical and religious development of Salafism in Nigeria as well as the key role played by Saudi Salafi universities and religious institutions and quasi-state NGOs, the book expands the schol- arly literature on Salafism, Islam in Africa, and political Islam and Islamic social movements. It also contributing to ongoing debates and discussions on approaches to the study of the role of texts and textual traditions in the formation of individual and communal religious identity. Christopher AnzaloneResearch Fellow, International Security ProgramBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University& PhD candidate, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

The global spread of Salafism, though it began in the 1960s and 1970s, only started to attract significant attention from scholars and analysts outside of Islamic studies as well as journalists, politicians, and the general public following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda Central. After the attacks, Salafism—or, as it was pejoratively labeled by its critics inside and outside of the Islamic tradition, “Wahhabism”—was accused of being the ideological basis of all expressions of Sunni militancy from North America and Europe to West and East Africa, the Arab world, and into Asia. According to this narrative, Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Za- wahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other Sunni jihadis were merely putting into action the commands of medieval ‘ulama such as Ibn Taymiyya, the eighteenth century Najdi Hanbali Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and modern revolutionary ideologues like Sayyid Qutb and ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam. To eradicate terrorism, you must eliminate or neuter Salafism, say its critics. The reality, of course, is far more complex than this simplistic nar- rative purports. Salafism, though its adherents share the same core set of creedal beliefs and methodological approaches toward the interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith and Sunni legal canon, comes in many forms, from the scholastic and hierarchical Salafism of the ‘ulama in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries to the decentralized, self-described Salafi groups in Europe and North America who cluster around a single char- ismatic preacher who often has limited formal religious education. What unifies these different expressions of Salafism is a core canon of religious and legal texts and set of scholars who are widely respected and referenced in Salafi circles. Thurston grounds his fieldwork and text-based analysis of Salafism in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and home to one of the world’s largest single Muslim national populations, through the lens of this canon, which he defines as a “communally negotiated set of texts that is governed by rules of interpretation and appropriation” (1). He argues fur- ther that in the history of Nigerian Salafism, one can trace the major stages that the global Salafi movement has navigated as it spread from the Arab Middle East to what are erroneously often seen as “peripheral” areas of the Islamic world, Africa and parts of Asia. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in Nigeria including interviews with key Nigerian Salafi scholars and other leading figures as well as a wide range of textual primary sourc- es including British and Nigerian archival documents, international and national news media reports, leaked US embassy cables, and a significant number of religious lectures and sermons and writings by Nigerian Salafis in Arabic and Hausa. In Chapter One, Thurston argues that the Salafi canon gives individ- ual and groups of Salafis a sense of identity and membership in a unique and, to them, superior religious community that is linked closely to their understanding and reading of sacred history and the revered figures of the Prophet Muhammad and the Ṣaḥāba. Salafism as an intellectual current, theology, and methodological approach is transmitted through this can- on which serves not only as a vehicle for proselytization but also a rule- book through which the boundaries of what is and is not “Salafism” are determined by its adherents and leading authorities. The book’s analytical framework and approach toward understanding Salafism, which rests on seeing it as a textual tradition, runs counter to the popular but problematic tendency in much of the existing discussion and even scholarly literature on Salafism that defines it as a literalist, one-dimensional, and puritani- cal creed with a singular focus on the Qur’an and hadith canon. Salafis, Thurston argues, do not simply derive religious and legal rulings in linear fashion from the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunna but rather engage in a co- herent and uniform process of aligning today’s Salafi community with a set of normative practices and beliefs laid out by key Salafi scholars from the recent past. Thurston divides the emergence of a distinct “Salafi” current within Sunnis into two phases. The first stretches from 1880 to 1950, as Sun- ni scholars from around the Muslim-majority world whose approaches shared a common hadith-centered methodology came into closer contact. The second is from the 1960s through the present, as key Salafi institutions (such as the Islamic University of Medina and other Saudi Salafi bodies) were founded and began attracting and (perhaps most importantly) fund- ing and sponsoring Sunni students from countries such as Nigeria to come study in Saudi Arabia, where they were deeply embedded in the Salafi tra- dition before returning to their home countries where, in turn, they spread Salafism among local Muslims. Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, as with other regions such as Yemen’s northern Sa‘ada governorate, proved to be a fertile ground for Salafism in large part because it enabled local Muslims from more humble social backgrounds to challenge the longtime domi- nance of hereditary ruling families and the established religious class. In northern Nigeria the latter was and continues to be dominated by Sufi or- ders and their shaykhs whose long-running claim to communal leadership faced new and substantive theological and resource challenges following the return of Nigerian seminary students from Saudi Arabia’s Salafi scho- lastic institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s. In Chapters Two and Three, Thurston traces the history of Nigerian and other African students in Saudi Arabia, which significantly expanded following the 1961 founding of the Islamic University of Medina (which remains the preeminent Salafi seminary and university in the world) and after active outreach across the Sunni Muslim world by the Saudi govern- ment and Salafi religious elite to attract students through lucrative funding and scholarship packages. The process of developing an African Salafism was not one-dimensional or imposed from the top-down by Saudi Salafi elites, but instead saw Nigerian and other African Salafi students partici- pate actively in shaping and theorizing Salafi da‘wa that took into account the specifics of each African country and Islamic religious and social envi- ronment. In Nigeria and other parts of West and East Africa, this included considering the historically dominant position of Sufi orders and popular practices such as devotion to saints and grave and shrine visitation. African and Saudi Salafis also forged relationships with local African partners, in- cluding powerful political figures such as Ahmadu Bello and his religious adviser Abubakar Gumi, by attracting them with the benefits of establishing ties with wealthy international Islamic organizations founded and backed by the Saudi state, including the Muslim World League. Nigerian Salafis returning from their studies in Saudi Arabia actively promoted their Salafi canon among local Muslims, waging an aggressive proselytization campaign that sought to chip away at the dominance of traditional political and religious elites, the Sufi shaykhs. This process is covered in Chapter Four. Drawing on key sets of legal and exegetical writ- ings by Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and other Salafi scholars, Nigerian Salafis sought to introduce a framework—represented by the canon—through which their students and adherents approach re- ligious interpretation and practice. By mastering one’s understanding and ability to correctly interpret scripture and the hadith, Salafis believe, one will also live a more ethical life based on a core set of “Salafi” principles that govern not only religious but also political, social, and economic life. Salaf- ism, Thurston argues, drawing on the work of Terje Østebø on Ethiopian Salafism, becomes localized within a specific environment.As part of their da‘wa campaigns, Nigerian Salafis have utilized media and new technology to debate their rivals and critics as well as to broad- en their own influence over Nigerian Muslims and national society more broadly, actions analyzed in Chapter Five. Using the Internet, video and audio recorded sermons and religious lectures, books and pamphlets, and oral proselytization and preaching, Nigerian Salafis, like other Muslim ac- tivists and groups, see in media and technology an extension of the phys- ical infrastructure provided by institutions such as mosques and religious schools. This media/cyber infrastructure is as, if not increasingly more, valuable as the control of physical space because it allows for the rapid spread of ideas beyond what would have historically been possible for local religious preachers and missionaries. Instead of preaching political revo- lution, Nigerian Salafi activists sought to win greater access to the media including radio airtime because they believed this would ultimately lead to the triumph of their religious message despite the power of skeptical to downright hostile local audiences among the Sufi orders and non-Salafis dedicated to the Maliki juridical canon.In the realm of politics, the subject of Chapter Six, Nigeria’s Salafis base their political ideology on the core tenets of the Salafi creed and canon, tenets which cast Salafism as being not only the purest but the only true version of Islam, and require of Salafis to establish moral reform of a way- ward Muslim society. Salafi scholars seek to bring about social, political, and religious reform, which collectively represent a “return” to the Prophet Muhammad’s Islam, by speaking truth to power and advising and repri- manding, as necessary, Muslim political rulers. In navigating the multi-po- lar and complex realm of national and regional politics, Thurston argues, Nigerian Salafi scholars educated in Saudi Arabia unwittingly opened the door to cruder and more extreme, militant voices of figures lacking the same level of study of the Salafi canon or Sunni Islam generally. The most infamous of the latter is “Boko Haram,” the jihadi-insurgent group today based around Lake Chad in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger, which calls itself Jama‘at Ahl al-Sunna li-l-Da‘wa wa-l-Jihad and is led by the bombastic Abubakar Shekau. Boko Haram, under the leadership first of the revivalist preacher Mu- hammad Yusuf and then Shekau, is covered at length in the book’s third and final part, which is composed of two chapters. Yusuf, unlike mainstream Nigerian Salafis, sought to weaponize the Salafi canon against the state in- stead of using it as a tool to bring about desired reforms. Drawing on the writings of influential Arab jihadi ideologues including Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and the apocalyptic revolutionary Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, the lat- ter of whom participated in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Yusuf cited key Salafi concepts such as al-walā’ min al-mu’minīn wa-l-bara’ ‘an al-kāfirīn (loyalty to the Believers and disavowal of the Disbelievers) and beliefs about absolute monotheism (tawḥīd) as the basis of his revival- ist preaching. Based on these principle, he claimed, Muslims must not only fulfill their ritual duties such as prayer and fasting during Ramadan but also actively fight “unbelief” (kufr) and “apostasy” (ridda) and bring about God’s rule on earth, following the correct path of the community of the Prophet Abraham (Millat Ibrāhīm) referenced in multiple Qur’anic verses and outlined as a theological project for action by al-Maqdisi in a lengthy book of that name that has had a profound influence on the formation of modern Sunni jihadism. Instead of seeing Boko Haram, particularly under Shekau’s leadership, as a “Salafi” or “jihadi-Salafi” group, Thurston argues it is a case study of how a group that at one point in its history adhered to Salafism can move away from and beyond it. In the case of Shekau and his “post-Salafism,” he writes, the group, like Islamic State, has shifted away from the Salafi canon and toward a jihadism that uses only stripped-down elements from the canon and does so solely to propagate a militaristic form of jihad. Even when referencing historical religious authorities such as Ibn Taymiyya, Thurston points out, Boko Haram and Islamic State leaders and members often do so through the lens of modern Sunni jihadi ideologues like Juhay- man al-‘Utaybi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, figures who have come to form a Sunni jihadi canon of texts, intellectuals, and ideologues. Shekau, in short, has given up canonical Salafism and moved toward a more bombastic and scholastically more heterodox and less-Salafi-than- jihadi creed of political violence. Thurston also pushes back against the often crude stereotyping of Af- rican Islamic traditions and movements that sees African Muslims as being defined by their “syncretic” mix of traditional African religious traditions and “orthodox” Islam, the latter usually a stand-in for “Arab” and “Middle Eastern” Islam. Islam and Islamic movements in Africa have developed in social and political environments that are not mirrors to the dominant models of the Arab world (in particular, Egypt). He convincingly points out that analysis of all forms of African Islamic social and political mobi- lization through a Middle East and Egypt-heavy lens obscures much more than it elucidates. The book includes useful glossaries of key individuals and Arabic terms referenced in the text as well as a translation of a sermon by the late, revered Salafi scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani that is part of the mainstream Salafi canon. Extensive in its coverage of the his- tory, evolution, and sociopolitical and religious development of Salafism in Nigeria as well as the key role played by Saudi Salafi universities and religious institutions and quasi-state NGOs, the book expands the schol- arly literature on Salafism, Islam in Africa, and political Islam and Islamic social movements. It also contributing to ongoing debates and discussions on approaches to the study of the role of texts and textual traditions in the formation of individual and communal religious identity. Christopher AnzaloneResearch Fellow, International Security ProgramBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University& PhD candidate, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

This study deals with the relationship between religious fundamentalism and the internet. It aims to be a critique of the conception that religion and modernization are inherently incompatible; that modernization leads to the death of religion, as advocated the secularization theorists. It argues that the notion is an inaccurate characterization and understanding of the interplay between the forces of religion and modernization; rather, both co-exist and mutually reinforce one another. It also argues that it is inappropriate to label religious fundamentalism as an anti-modern movement; it might be true that it is ideologically ultra-orthodox, but it is technologically a modern movement. The value of this study lies in its findings that the most conservative religious groups like the Salafi community not only persist in the face of modernization, but also transform realities of modernity like the internet into a new form of modern product that serves well their religious needs and interests. To support this, I analysed Salafism, a transnational Islamic fundamentalist movement, and its use of the internet within the Indonesian context to uncover how they employ the technology. I examined the ways the Salafis use the internet in accordance with their ideological purposes in the frameworks of ‘cultured technology’, localization process of global force of information technology, appropriation of global media, and spiritualizing technology. Textual analysis was mainly employed as a method to understand the Salafi web contents and uncover the ways the Salafi use the internet.

The thesis examines two of the arguably most contentious strands within contemporary Islam – Salafism and Islamism – in the British context from 1965 to the contemporary period. Its central argument is that by using their (multi-directional) connections, modern Muslim sects in Britain fashioned a distinct ‘Western Muslim’ consciousness, which has gradually altered their relationship with the ‘Muslim world’ at large. Rather than generating remittances to send ‘back home’, to Muslim-majority countries – Britain, and the West more broadly, came to be seen as another important Muslim space in need of resources, institutions, and unique paradigms for understanding and practicing Islam. Put differently, scholars, activists and intellectuals began carving out a self-conscious Western form of Islam, and in this process have begun to subvert their peripheral status vis-à-vis the heartlands of the Muslim world. The thesis charts the emergence of this ‘Western Muslim’ consciousness beginning from the late 1960s to the present. It demonstrates that this was neither a linear process of severing ties with Muslim-majority countries, nor one of wholly adopting Western cultural codes or modes of faith. Rather Salafis and Islamists rooted Islam in Britain, but on their own terms. It opens with a re-examination of the religious lives of the first generation pioneer migrants that arrived in the post-War period from South Asia, who were involved with either the Ahl-e-Hadith or the Jamaat-e-Islami. It examines how each faction established their mosques and organisations in the British context, making complex and sophisticated adaptions in their thoughts and practice while negotiating their changed setting. It suggests that the sharp generational divide – where the first were primarily seen in ethnic terms and the second adopted a global religious identity – has hitherto dominated accounts of Muslims in Britain, and needs to be critiqued and revised. From their inception, the struggle to recreate an ‘authentic’ Islam was pivotal in both movements. Purging Islam from adulterations and perceiving themselves as part of the global ummah were sentiments that were present, to a certain degree, in the first-generation. This is not to say that there were no generational differences, but that these differences were more fluid than has been suggested. The thesis also explores the reasons underpinning the resurgence of ‘traditional’ religious figures at the expense of ‘intellectuals’. However, in the context of individualisation, new media and the democratisation of religion, this raises important questions as to how ‘traditional’ religious authority is being transformed and adapted. It analyses the seemingly contradictory elements of the desire to wholeheartedly follow ‘authentic’ religious figures on the one hand, and still actively rationalise and determine which interpretation of Islam they ultimately follow on the other. With the advent of cyberspace, it also examines the changing contours of the ‘community’ and the relationship between offline and online networks. It argues that the internet has accelerated the development of like-minded or ideological transnational networks that span online and offline spaces. These networks increasingly take precedence over geographically close ‘communities’ decentralising, but not devaluing, the masjid.

Résumé : Cette thèse s’intéresse à la question de la radicalisation violente chez les salafistes algériens. Elle tente de comprendre comment s’effectue le glissement d’un militantisme (ou d’une sympathie) en faveur d’un islam politique légal, vers un activisme clandestin versé dans l’action violente sous le seau du djihad armé. Saisir le cheminement de cette entrée en radicalité, nous amène d’abord à réfléchir sur la radicalisation de la pensée religieuse comme première étape du processus étudié. L’engagement au profit du djihad est ensuite tributaire d’une construction (ou reconstruction) identitaire fondée sur un renversement moral de l’ordre socioreligieux établi. Les représentationsqui en émanent sont le produit d’une socialisation de l’individu à une pensée radicalisée qui, lorsqu’elle est combinée à d’autres variables facilitatrices ou incitatrices, le prédispose à passer à l’acte. Ainsi, au niveau macro, les opportunités/menaces agissent comme des facteurs facilitateurs ou précipitateurs dans l’engagement armé ; la répression et la fermeture du champ politique sont à ce titre, les variables les plus redondantes dans l’explication de l’entrée en radicalité chez les salafistes algériens. Au niveau méso et micro, l’influence des réseaux préconstitués (organisations armées, réseaux de soutiens logistiques…) et des liens sociaux (amis, voisins, famille…) pèse lourdement sur le choix de l’engagement collectif et individuel. Enfin, les chocs moraux et les récits mémoriels sur la répression subie peuvent aussi nous éclairer à saisir un certain nombre de trajectoires de radicalisation violente chez les djihadistes algériens
Abstract : This thesis focuses on the issue of violent radicalization among Algerian Salafists. It tries to understand how is the shift of activism (or sympathy) for a legal political Islam to a clandestine activism poured into violent action in the bucket of armed jihad. Enter the path of the entry into radicalism, leads us first to reflect on the radicalization of religious thought as a first step in the process studied. The commitment in favor of jihad is then dependent on a construction (or reconstruction) of identity based on moral overthrow of the established socio-religious order. The representations that come in are the product of socialization of the individual to a radicalized thought which, when combined with other variables or incentive-facilitators, predisposes to pass the act. Thus, at the macro level, opportunities / threats act as facilitators factors or precipitators in the armed engagement; repression and the closure of the political field as such are the most redundant variables in explaining the entry into radicalism among Algerian Salafists. At the meso and micro level, the influence of pre-made networks (armed organizations, logistic support networks ...) and social connections (friends, neighbors, family ...) weighs heavily on the choice of the individual and collective commitment. Finally, moral shocks and stories on the memorial suffered repression may also enlighten us to enter a number of violent radicalization trajectories among Algerian jihadists

Over the last few decades and particularly since '9/11', Islamism has become a major actor in international relations with the rise of a wide variety of movements. There is however still a profound ignorance as to the differences between them and their internal dynamics. The case of the Palestinian Hamas is a particularly good example because it is one of the most renowned and influential Islamist movements globally - despite the very confined geographical space it operates in. And yet, it is little understood. This thesis is an attempt to situate Hamas in the history of Islamism and among that spectrum of Islamist organisations that exist today. It does this by tracing some of the most influential voices in the Movement and reconstructing its internal conversation around a question that is central to Islamism: the role of revelation in politics. To answer it, this thesis focuses on the use of the religious reference in Hamas. It identifies a group of Salafi 'ulama' and analyses their discourse and the function that they performed in the Movement. It argues that there are two major trends in Islamism, a modernist and a purist, and these compete over the legacy of the Salafi movement. It is the debates between them within Hamas that the argument in this thesis is structured around. Modernist Salafism is manifested in Hamas through the centrist trend, a regional movement that inherited the thought of nineteenth century Islamic reformists who tried to reconcile Islam with the Western liberal tradition. The purist Salafi trend is an offshoot of Saudi Wahhabism, and is represented in Hamas by its 'ulama'. Thus far, these two trends have been presented as competing, and only rarely has the influence of purist Salafism within the Muslim Brotherhood, or an offshoot thereof like Hamas, been discussed. This thesis is structured chronologically around a set of key moments in the history of the Movement. Although extensive and detailed interviews have been carried out, the focus is on tapping into the main debates within the organisation that are hidden from the general public and that contrast with Hamas's external discourse. For this it analyses the newspaper al-Risala, one of its main media organs, as well as other publications written primarily for an internal audience.

Au Sénégal, l’essentiel de la population musulmane est affilié au soufisme. Quatre principales confréries soufi, dont la tajaniyya, la mouridiyya, la qadiriyya et la layiniyya, organisent la vie islamique et définissent, en partie, l’identité du musulman sénégalais. Mais, depuis la fin des années 1970, des sénégalais revendiquent d’autres façons d’être musulman hors du soufisme et de ces confréries tout en restant sunnites (il existe une petite minorité de chiites). Ils se constituent en associations et mouvements islamiques très dynamiques. Leur rigorisme les mène à catégoriser les croyances et pratiques d’islam au Sénégal en orthodoxes (les leurs) et hétérodoxes (celles des soufi). Ainsi, ils se coupent de toute filiation confrérique soufi, critiquent des croyances et pratiques soufi et affichent leur différence par des codes vestimentaires, des pratiques islamiques, des comportements sociaux, etc. Ces logiques religieuses et identitaires les font appeler d’abord « arabisants » (par opposition aux sortants de l’école français, européenne) puis « ibadou », en référence au nom choisi, pour leurs membres, par les fondateurs de l’association Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane (JIR).Dans cette thèse, nous avons essayé de montrer en quoi les « ibadou du Sénégal » nous renseignent sur les croyances et pratiques actuelles d’islam puis en quoi ils rendent compte des crises de l’islam dans ce contexte de globalisation marqué, depuis le 11 septembre 2001, par la médiatisation de l’islamisme radical et du terrorisme
This doctoral dissertation investigates, and aims at highlighting, the ways in which the «ibadou of Senegal» account for the current Islamic practices and beliefs in Senegal and how they cope with the predicaments of Islam in the context of a globalizing world, mainstreamed ideas of radical Islam and terrorism, of which 11th of September 2001 has been a historical landmark. In Senegal, the majority of the Muslim population is affiliated to Sufism. Four main Sufi groups, namely the tajaniyya, the mouridiyya, the qadirriya and the layiniyya, organize the Islamic life and define the identity of the Muslim population in the country. However, since the late 1970s, some Senegalese people pursued other ways of practicing their religion, outside of Sufism while remaining Sunnis (with a minority of Chia Muslims). They organize themselves in communities with highly dynamic Islamic movements. Their religious rigorism mas made them categorize their Islamic faith and practices as Orthodox, and that of others as Heterodox (The Sufi Muslims). Furthermore, with an outright different dress code, they segregate themselves from the Sufi group by criticizing their beliefs and practices and promoting Islamic practices and social conduct of their own. They were, first, called “Arabist” by training and by their very religious and identity logics, (in opposition to those affiliated with the French schooling system) then now are known as « ibadou », in reference to Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane, a name chosen for the members, but by the founders, of the Association

This study examines the Islamic concept of Al-Wala’ wal Bara’ (Loyalty and Disavowal) in modern Salafism referred to here as WB. The research is divided into two parts. Part One introduces the phenomenon of modern Salafism and the concept of WB (Chapter One). It also demonstrates how the Quran, particularly its sixtieth chapter (Surah Al-Mumtahanah) and the concept of Millat Ibrahim (Religion of Abraham) play an important role in formulating the modern Salafi concept of WB (Chapter Two). Part Two discusses the realities and complexities of the concept. First, the concept in Wahhabism, whose adherents form the majority of modern Salafis, and whose tradition is believed to have influenced and shaped modern Salafism, is discussed (Chapter Three). The complexities of WB are described as the research recognizes the diversity or “spectrum” of the concept in modern Salafism, which ranges from what might be termed “very mild” to “very extreme” (Chapter Four). The research shows that one of the main reasons for this diversity is the different Salafi orientations or the backgrounds from which modern Salafis emerge. This is proven through analyzing the writings on WB by Salafis of purist, politico and Jihadi backgrounds – a specific categorization of modern Salafis used for the purpose of this research (Chapter Five). The analysis is conducted by mainly observing the role of WB within their intellectual systems. Through this analysis, it is concluded that a particular Salafi orientation has an effect on the style of writing and presentation of the concept by modern Salafis. This reflects the position of WB in modern Salafism as being fluid and multi-dimensional. The research then, aims to explore the centrality, breadth and complexity of the WB concept in modern Salafism, and proves that WB in modern Salafism is not static but flexible and dynamic. The significance of the research lies in the fact that understanding modern Salafi conceptions of WB is an urgent priority in the lives of Muslims today. This understanding is critical, as Muslims increasingly live as minority communities across the globe and WB has specific implications for whether (and how) Muslims can live with non-Muslims. The research concludes that the consequences of applying the modern Salafi concept of WB are serious – WB generally promotes a way of life that is insular and hostile towards non-Muslims and this, it might be argued, is at variance with more tolerant, inclusive nature of Islam.

Orientador: Omar Ribeiro Thomaz
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
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Resumo: Quais são os papéis e os signicados do conceito de jihad para os movimentos islamistas contemporâneos? Este trabalho pretende analisar o conceito de jihad na ideologia do jordaniano-palestino 'Isâm Muhammad Tâhir al-Barqâwî (Abû Muhammad al-Maqdisî). Com isso, procuraremos demonstrar que o jihad moderno, em sua manifestação salafista militante, está ligado a uma recomposição da identidade islâmica em três eixos: a crença ('aqîda), a lei (sharî'a) e a guerra/luta/combate (qitâl, jihâd, h. arb). O jihad, portanto, não pode ser dissociado da visão de mundo específica em que se insere. E, segundo o pensamento salalista-jihadista, é parte imprescindível do modo de vida do verdadeiro muçulmano. E, diversamente de outras leituras históricas e contemporâneas do jihad, esse jihad se torna, ele próprio, um modo de vida: uma missão, uma ideologia, e uma doutrina religiosa
Abstract: What are the roles and meanings taken by the concept of jihad for contemporary islamist movements?The aim of this work is to analize the concept of jihad in the ideology of the Palestinian-Jordanian 'Is.âm Muhammad T. âhir al-Barqâwî (Abû Muhammad al-Maqdisî). I contend that modern jihad, in its militant, salafi conception, is connected to a recomposing of Islamic identity on three axis: belief ('aqîda), law (sharî'a), and war/combat/fight (qitâl, jihâd, h.arb). Jihad, therefore, cannot be set apart from the specific worldview wherein it thrives. According to salafi-jihadi thought - and contrary to other historical and contemporary understandings among Muslims - jihad becomes a way of life in itself: a mission, an ideology, and a religious doctrine
Doutorado
Antropologia
Doutor em Antropologia Social

Salafist mujahideen arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). The presence of mujahideen, coupled with the increased scrutiny on the Islamic World post-9/11, led to the narrative of Bosnia being primed for the proliferation of jihadi takfiri Salafi ideology. This prediction was supported by the existence of villages that adhered to shari’a law and parajamaats, parallel mosques, which operated outside of the control of the formal Bosnian Islamic Community (BIC). In the mid-2010s, Bosnian-born foreign fighters travelled to foreign theatres of conflict, mainly Syria and Iraq, to support and fight for terrorist groups, including ISIS. According to radicalisation theories often applied to European case studies, Bosniaks were expected to accept and proliferate Salafism. This assumption is based on Bosnia’s history of ethnic violence and trauma, socio-economic challenges, and a dramatic unpreparedness to counter the presence of foreign entities promoting the ideology domestically. However, as of 2016, the flow of Bosnian-born foreign fighters had halted, as has the presence of Salafist radicals willing to break the threshold of violence. This thesis proposes reasons why a vast majority Bosnian Muslims did not radicalise as expected by exploring the actions taken by civil society, the Bosnian Islamic Community, and the central government to combat Salafist radicalisation in Bosnia. The thesis evaluate how actions and policies were perceived and critiqued by those with localised knowledge and lived experience. This thesis uses an interpretive framework and employs insights from political anthropology and political ethnography, drawing on interviews to present a ‘from within’ analysis. The analysis of Bosnia's historical and cultural complexities and radicalisation literature reveal significant gaps regarding the interplay of the different segments of Bosnian society in countering and preventing Salafist radicalisation.

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The contemporary Salafist movement idealizes the Rightly Guided Caliphate. Given the tumultuous nature of the period and the grandeur of the Golden Age of Islam that occurred several centuries later, its veneration seems paradoxical. To explain the reality of the Rightly Guided Caliphate and the reasoning behind its emulation, this study explores both the traditional historical account and the contemporary Salafist narrative of the period. Comparative analysis indicates that the period is revered, despite the paradoxical turmoil and violence associated with it, because it is perceived as the summit of both spiritual purity and temporal power in Islamic history. Contemporary Salafists long for a resurgence of Muslim power in the world but do not want to sacrifice religious purity to obtain it. The Rightly Guided Caliphate epitomizes this notion because its earliest generation was the most pure, in terms of the practice of Islam, of any Muslim generation. In addition, its seemingly miraculous expansion signified enormous temporal powerrelative to its competitors, who have since overtaken themthat is easily romanticized. Much of the periods violence is omitted from the narrative to protect an idealized remembrance of the states power, not its religious unity.

Since the 2011 Arab uprisings, Salafism has adapted to new shifts in Maghrebi state-society relations and the marginalization of key population segments and regions. In tandem, changing fortunes of other streams of Islamism and Islamic practice have provided Salafism new opportunities for growth and politicization. The imperative socioeconomic relevance has meant that Salafis in all the Maghreb cases have deployed and reinterpreted traditional Salafi precepts in unique and surprising ways. The result has been a blurring of the lines between quietism and politicos—and sometimes the lines between Salafis and non-Salafist groups like the Brotherhood. Ultimately, Salafism in the Maghreb must be seen as a portal onto the frustrations of an increasingly young population who are drawn to the movement as a moral critique against entrenched orders that have either failed them or no longer address their needs.

This chapter explores the ebbs and flows of Salafi ideology and activity in Algeria and explains how such evolutionary process has been largely dependent on shifting opportunity structures and Salafis’ own interactions with the governing authorities. From the tortuous road to jihadi Salafism in the 1990s to the entrenchment of quietist Salafism in the new millennium, the chapter expounds a detailed analysis of the complex and thorny relationship between and among the different Salafi factions and how, during critical junctures, they have positioned themselves vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis the Algerian regime. The chapter also examines the many forces that contributed to the forceful re-emergence of Salafi ideology and activism as the locus of societal contention and controversy in the wake of the Arab uprisings.

Saudi Arabia enjoys a privileged position in the Middle East by virtue of its strategic position, and because of its political, economic and religious factors, as the Saudi political system was established in 1744 in accordance with a political-religious agreement between the Al Saud and the religious institution represented by the Wahhabi da'wa (Salafism), and continued to receive its legitimacy and support from it, tribalism also took an important aspect in maturity, and the expansion of the influence of this country until the oil wealth contributed to its development, and strengthened its relations with the outside world, which in turn casts an important aspect of maturity, and the expansion of the influence of this country until the oil wealth contributed to its development, and strengthened its relations with the outside world, which in turn casts an important aspect of maturity. In the importance of future studies that address topics related to Saudi domestic and external affairs, notably the issue of reform. The reform trends in Saudi Arabia coincided with its opening to the world specifically western countries in the early 1990s, and increased elitist and popular calls for reform, as well as a number of structural causes that reinforced the alliance between the political and religious institution that clearly controlled the social, political and civil life of the Kingdom. This study is concerned with the reform process in the Saudi political system by showing the future scenes of that process, and then relying on internal variables, and the study tries in the framework of its problem to answer a key question: where is the Saudi political system going in light of internal variables. The hypothesis of the study in the context of future studies is based on an optimistic scene that supports the success of the reform process in Saudi Arabia, and another pessimistic scene that believes that the political system in the Kingdom will remain the same, if not turn into a worse state than it is now.

Muhammad Rizieq Shihab has been one of the most well-known faces of the far-right in Indonesia since the late 1990s. As a radical Islamist scholar with links to Saudi Arabia, Shihab has spent the last three decades as an anti-state voice of the “pious Muslim majority” in Indonesia. He claims to position himself as a “righteous” and “fearless” leader who is dedicated to defending Islam—the faith of “the people.” In 2020 Shihab was arrested for holding large public gatherings, as part of his ‘moral revolution’ campaign, in the middle of pandemic lockdowns. However, his radical Salafist message continues to inspire thousands to action.