Download or read book Understanding Salafism written by Mohamed-Ali Adraoui and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the issue of one of the most visible and debated currents in contemporary radical Islam. It sheds light on the history, the fundamental principles, and the political and religious translations of Salafism and explains current events involving Salafist actors in an objective and dispassionate manner. The author explains with precision the different contemporary Salafist mobilizations by illustrating them with specific cases while shedding light on the main debates related to this mode of understanding of the Muslim religion, such as its potential role in triggering certain forms of violence, the way to compare it to other fundamentalist versions in other religions, or the way to describe, in terms of social sciences, the main concepts and discourses that can be observed in this current of Islam today.

Download or read book Salafism in Nigeria written by Alexander Thurston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The spectre of Boko Haram and its activities in Nigeria dominates both media and academic analysis of Islam in the region. But, as Alexander Thurston argues here, beyond the sensational headlines this group generates, the dynamics of Muslim life in northern Nigeria remain poorly understood. Drawing on interviews with leading Salafis in Nigeria as well as on a rereading of the history of the global Salafi movement, this volume explores how a canon of classical and contemporary texts defines Salafism. Examining how these texts are interpreted and - crucially - who it is that has the authority to do so, Thurston offers a systematic analysis of curricula taught in Saudi Arabia and how they shape religious scholars' approach to religion and education once they return to Africa. Essential for scholars of religion and politics, this unique text explores how the canon of Salafism has been used and refined, from Nigeria's return to democracy to the jihadist movement Boko Haram.

Download or read book Understanding Salafism written by Yasir Qadhi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2025-06-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Salafi movement invokes fear and dread in outsiders who treat Salafism as synonymous with religious extremism. For Salafis themselves, it’s a jealously guarded title, always in danger of dilution. Salafism has changed the face of Islam; its ideas reach far outside its own ranks. Yet popular portrayals never go beyond hackneyed stereotypes. In Understanding Salafism, Dr Yasir Qadhi delves into the origins of the movement, from the earliest debates in Islam to Salafism today, in both the Western and Islamic worlds. He illuminates Salafism’s theological ideas, the debates within Salafism about political participation, and its relationship to other schools in Sunni Islam.

Download or read book The Making of Salafism written by Henri Lauzière and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some Islamic scholars hold that Salafism is an innovative and rationalist effort at Islamic reform that emerged in the late nineteenth century but gradually disappeared in the mid twentieth. Others argue Salafism is an anti-innovative and antirationalist movement of Islamic purism that dates back to the medieval period yet persists today. Though they contradict each other, both narratives are considered authoritative, making it hard for outsiders to grasp the history of the ideology and its core beliefs. Introducing a third, empirically based genealogy, The Making of Salafism understands the concept as a recent phenomenon projected back onto the past, and it sees its purist evolution as a direct result of decolonization. Henri Lauzière builds his history on the transnational networks of Taqi al-Din al-Hilali (1894–1987), a Moroccan Salafi who, with his associates, participated in the development of Salafism as both a term and a movement. Traveling from Rabat to Mecca, from Calcutta to Berlin, al-Hilali interacted with high-profile Salafi scholars and activists who eventually abandoned Islamic modernism in favor of a more purist approach to Islam. Today, Salafis tend to claim a monopoly on religious truth and freely confront other Muslims on theological and legal issues. Lauzière's pathbreaking history recognizes the social forces behind this purist turn, uncovering the popular origins of what has become a global phenomenon.

Download or read book Roots Of Religious Extremism The Understanding The Salafi Doctrine Of Al wala Wal Bara written by Mohamed Bin Ali and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015-09-14 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the issues in contemporary Islamic thought which has attracted considerable attention amongst Muslim scholars and within the Muslim community is the valid and appropriate attitude of Muslims to relationships with non-Muslims. A major source of confusion and controversy with regards to this relationship comes from the allegation that Muslims must reserve their love and loyalty for fellow Muslims, and reject and declare war on the rest of humanity — most acutely seen through the Islamic concept of Al-Wala' wal Bara' (WB) translated as “Loyalty and Disavowal”, which appears to be central in the ideology of modern Salafism.This book investigates the dynamics and complexities of the concept of WB within modern Salafism and aims to understand the diverse interpretation of this concept; and how modern Salafis understand and apply the concept in contemporary religious, social and political settings. The book discovers that the complexities, diversities and disputes surrounding the concept in modern Salafism often revolve around issues of social, political and current realities.The significance of this book lies in the fact that comprehending modern Salafis' conception of WB, its realities and complexities has become an urgent priority in the lives of Muslims today.

Download or read book Salafi Jihadism written by Shiraz Maher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No topic has captured the public imagination of late quite so dramatically as the specter of global jihadism. While much has been said about the way jihadists behave, their ideology remains poorly understood. As the Levant has imploded and millenarian radicals claim to have revived a Caliphate based on the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, the need for a nuanced and accurate understanding of jihadist beliefs has never been greater. Shiraz Maher charts the intellectual underpinnings of salafi-jihadism from its origins in the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the jihadist insurgencies of the 1990s and the 9/11 wars. What emerges is the story of a pragmatic but resilient warrior doctrine that often struggles - as so many utopian ideologies do - to consolidate the idealism of theory with the reality of practice. His ground-breaking introduction to salafi-jihadism recalibrates our understanding of the ideas underpinning one of the most destructive political philosophies of our time by assessing classical works from Islamic antiquity alongside those of contemporary ideologues. Packed with refreshing and provocative insights, Maher explains how war and insecurity engendered one of the most significant socio-religious movements of the modern era.

Download or read book Sufis Salafis and Islamists written by Sadek Hamid and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British Muslim activism has evolved constantly in recent decades. What have been its main groups and how do their leaders compete to attract followers? Which social and religious ideas from abroad are most influential? In this groundbreaking study, Sadek Hamid traces the evolution of Sufi, Salafi and Islamist activist groups in Britain, including The Young Muslims UK, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Salafi JIMAS organisation and Traditional Islam Network. With reference to second-generation British Muslims especially, he explains how these groups gain and lose support, embrace and reject foreign ideologies, and succeed and fail to provide youth with compelling models of British Muslim identity. Analyzing historical and firsthand community research, Hamid gives a compelling account of the complexity that underlies reductionist media narratives of Islamic activism in Britain.

Download or read book On Salafism written by Azmi Bishara and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Salafism offers a compelling new understanding of this phenomenon, both its development and contemporary manifestations. Salafism became associated with fundamentalism when the 9/11 Commission used it to explain the terror attacks and has since been connected with the violence of the so-called Islamic State. With this book, Azmi Bishara critically deconstructs claims of continuity between early Islam and modern militancy and makes a counterargument: Salafism is a wholly modern construct informed by specific sociopolitical contexts. Bishara offers a sophisticated account of various movements—such as Wahabbism and Hanbalism—frequently collapsed into simplistic understandings of Salafism. He distinguishes reformist from regressive Salafism, and examines patterns of modernization in the development of contemporary Islamic political movements and associations. In deconstructing the assumptions of linear continuity between traditional and contemporary movements, Bishara details various divergences in both doctrine and context of modern Salafisms, plural. On Salafism is a crucial read for those interested in Islamism, jihadism, and Middle East politics and history.

Download or read book The Roots of Religious Extremism written by Mohamed Bin Ali and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the issues in contemporary Islamic thought which has attracted considerable attention amongst Muslim scholars and within the Muslim community is the valid and appropriate attitude of Muslims to relationships with non-Muslims. A major source of confusion and controversy with regards to this relationship comes from the allegation that Muslims must reserve their love and loyalty for fellow Muslims and reject and declare war on the rest of humanity most acutely seen through the Islamic concept of Al-Wala' wal Bara' (WB) translated as "Loyalty and Disavowal," which appears to be central in the ideology of modern Salafism. This book investigates the dynamics and complexities of the concept of WB within modern Salafism and aims to understand the diverse interpretation of this concept; and how modern Salafis understand and apply the concept in contemporary religious, social and political settings. The book discovers that the complexities, diversities and disputes surrounding the concept in modern Salafism often revolve around issues of social, political and current realities. The significance of this book lies in the fact that comprehending modern Salafis' conception of WB, its realities and complexities has become an urgent priority in the lives of Muslims today.

Download or read book Salafism and Traditionalism written by Emad Hamdeh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a detailed reconstruction of the heated debates between Salafis and Traditionalist over the contested role of Islamic scholarly authority.

Download or read book Salafism written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes quotes from the Koran and Hadith *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "It's very simple. We want sharia. Sharia in economy, in politics, in judiciary, in our borders and our foreign relations." - Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, the son of Omar Abdel-Rahman, Time. October 8, 2012[ Beginning in 2010, much of the Middle East, including Egypt, was swept up by a series of revolutions later referred to as the Arab Spring. The wave of riots and demonstrations - some violent, some not, but all impactful and sizeable - began in Tunisia before spreading like wildfire to neighboring countries in Northern Africa and eventually into the Arabian Peninsula, including Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. Though it eventually petered out by mid-2012, the Arab Spring led to the toppling of long-reigning monarchs and regimes, free elections, and attempts to build republics based on democratic principles. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests of 2010 and 2011, the world witnessed the rise of political groups in the Middle East who associated themselves with a movement called Salafism, such as the Nour ("Light") Party in Egypt. Prior to these popular uprisings, the Salafis were rather marginalized groups within the spectrum of Islam and, in many cases, did not share a cohesive and agreed upon set of beliefs that clearly differed from what many call "mainstream Islam." Prior to the Arab Spring, different Muslim religious scholars and leaders had emerged and led what they believed to be Salafi movements to return Muslims back to the origins of the religion. The Arab Spring protests did fuel the overthrow of some long-term dictators, start civil war in other nations, and impress upon the world the power of digital communications. Another important outcome of these events was the opening of a space for religiously motivated social and political movements that had been feared and repressed for many years in the Middle East, particularly by autocratic rulers that arose during the post-colonialism fallout in the region. The term "Salaf' or "Salafism" is becoming more mainstream and associated with many unfortunate events, such as the spread of a violent ideology in the Middle East, South Central Asia, Europe, and North America because the perpetrators of violence claim to have some wholly different understanding of Islam than the rest of the world's Muslims. As such, the media and its consumers have begun to conflate and confuse the term Salafism with extremist or radical Islam, terrorism, Islamist, and a whole slate of other terms used to negatively label the entire religion. The problem is that the users of these terms in the media and beyond generally do not bother defining what it means to be a "Salafi" and how its many manifestations differ country to country and person to person within a given time and context. This is true for nearly all religions in most regards, because to believe something about a religion is to hold a subjective perspective: the religion is what you make of it or what others tell you to make of it. So what is Salafism? "The word salaf means predecessors, and in the Islamic context, it usually refers to the period of the Prophet, his Companions, and their successors." In general, a Salafi refers to someone who claims to follow a particular understanding of the Salaf and claims to comprehend an authoritative sense of Islam - one that espouses a belief that their Islam is the original Islam in the way it was practiced and meant to be practiced at the beginning of the religion. Most Salafis claim to focus their religious interpretation on the Qur'an's words and vary on the level of importance given to the Hadith. Whether their claim to boast a more accurate and traditional belief in the religion is true or not is debated among believers, but the fact remains that the term's usage is on the rise.

Download or read book Islamic Exceptionalism written by Shadi Hamid and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Islamic Exceptionalism, Brookings Institution scholar and acclaimed author Shadi Hamid offers a novel and provocative argument on how Islam is, in fact, "exceptional" in how it relates to politics, with profound implications for how we understand the future of the Middle East. Divides among citizens aren't just about power but are products of fundamental disagreements over the very nature and purpose of the modern nation state—and the vexing problem of religion’s role in public life. Hamid argues for a new understanding of how Islam and Islamism shape politics by examining different models of reckoning with the problem of religion and state, including the terrifying—and alarmingly successful—example of ISIS. With unprecedented access to Islamist activists and leaders across the region, Hamid offers a panoramic and ambitious interpretation of the region's descent into violence. Islamic Exceptionalism is a vital contribution to our understanding of Islam's past and present, and its outsized role in modern politics. We don't have to like it, but we have to understand it—because Islam, as a religion and as an idea, will continue to be a force that shapes not just the region, but the West as well in the decades to come.

Download or read book Rethinking Salafism written by Raihan Ismail and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Salafism has received scrutiny as the one of the main ideological sources for extremist violence perpetrated by jihadi groups. There is a significant corpus of literature discussing transnational jihadi networks, especially after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. These discussions include the radicalization of Salafi thought by jihadi theoreticians and 'ulama. However, Salafism is not monolithic. It contains numerous streams, and an examination of these streams is crucial to understanding its influence on Muslim societies. Besides Salafi jihadisthose who sanction violencethere are two other broad trends in Salafism: quietist and activist. Quietist Salafis endorse an apolitical tradition and find political activism in any form unacceptable. Activist Salafis advocate peaceful political change. Each stream is led by 'ulama, seen as the preservers of Salafi traditions. The quietist and activist 'ulama are active participants in their communities. Studies of such clerics have tended to be country-specific, focusing on the influence and nature of Salafism and its dynamics in those countries. In Rethinking Salafism Raihan Ismail assesses the origins, interactions, and dynamics of the transnational networks of Salafi 'ulama in the region comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait, showing how quietist and activist 'ulama work across borders to preserve and promote what they see as "authentic" Salafism while taking domestic circumstances of the 'ulama into consideration. The book offers a reassessment of the quietist/activist dichotomy, arguing that this dichotomy does not apply to such aspects of Salafi thought as attitudes towards the Shi'a and social matters in Muslim societies.

Download or read book Global Salafism written by Roel Meijer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the salience of the terms 'Salafism' or 'Jihadi-Salafism, ' not only in specialist analyses but also in the media, the currents of Islamic thought grouped under these terms are poised to become more widely known. Yet much western analysis suffers from a lack of sophistication and discernment on this important doctrinal trend in contemporary Islamic thought, so that 'Salafism' is some what liberally employed to denote, with far too much specificity, a phenomenon that is only opaquely defined to the western reader. The contributors to 'Global Salafism' are careful to map out not only the differences in the Salafist schools, but also to underscore the fluidity of this broad doctrinal tendency. They examine the phenomenon both in its regional manifestations - which demonstrate surprising diversities, ambivalences and contradictions - and in its shared essential doctrines. In so doing they highlight the ambivalences inherent in Salafism itself, and the Salafist believers' claim to be reviving Islamic thought for the modern age - albeit through the paradox of 'out-antiquing the antique' by appealing to a greater, older, purer authenticity. With considerable subtlety the tensions between the local and the global aspirations of exponents and claimants to the 'Salafist method' are explored and the parallels and divergences weighed. This is a unique book that can justifiably claim to be pioneering, as it is the first of its kind to take the phenomenon of Salafism as a whole, and address the task of defining what is, despite its crucial importance, a relatively neglected field.

Download or read book Salafism and Political Order in Africa written by Sebastian Elischer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violent Islamic extremism is affecting a growing number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In some, jihadi Salafi organizations have established home bases and turned into permanent security challengers. However, other countries have managed to prevent the formation or curb the spread of homegrown jihadi Salafi organizations. In this book, Sebastian Elischer provides a comparative analysis of how different West and East African states have engaged with fundamentalist Muslim groups between the 1950s and today. In doing so, he establishes a causal link between state-imposed organizational gatekeepers in the Islamic sphere and the absence of homegrown jihadi Salafism. Illustrating that the contemporary manifestation of violent Islamic extremism in sub-Saharan Africa is an outcome of strategic political decisions that are deeply embedded in countries' autocratic pasts, he challenges conventional notions of statehood on the African continent, and provides new insight into the evolving relationships between secular and religious authority.

Download or read book Salafism Goes Global written by Mohamed-Ali Adraoui and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Salafism is a fundamentalist Sunni vision of Islam that is growing in popularity in many countries. In this book, Mohamed-Ali Adraoui focuses on quietist Salafism, which he calls a study in contradictions. Strongly opposed to political action, terrorism, and the overthrow of established regimes, quietist Salafism insists on restructuring Islamic norms with the fervor of a revivalist and fundamentalist ethic. Quietist Salafis seek the purification of culture and religious renewal through a "de-militantization" of the Islamic corpus. Adraoui explores the Salafis' individual trajectories, their relationship with politics, and their vision of the world and of modernity, in order to understand how quietist Salafis negotiate their social identities and religious obligations in the Western context. What does the increasing presence of Islamic movements in the global space mean? Adraoui draws parallels between the French case and that of Muslim countries, and argues that the spread of quietist Salafism is partially a result of the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia. Quietist Salafism, he argues, is resonant of Saudi Arabia's efforts to promote a legitimist, anti-anarchist, and counter-revolutionary conception of Islam, after having long legitimized and reinforced the Islamist forces and Jihadist movements when it was in its geopolitical interests to do so. Salafism Goes Global sheds light on a dynamic of globalization that is taking place in the margins.

Download or read book Why I Am a Salafi written by Michael Muhammad Knight and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Salafi movement invests supreme Islamic authority in the precedents of the Salaf, the first three generations of Muslims, who represent a “Golden Age” from which all subsequent eras can only decline. In Why I Am a Salafi, Michael Muhammad Knight confronts the problem of origins, questioning the possibility of accessing pure Islam through its canonical texts. Why I Am a Salafi is also a confrontation of Knight’s own origins as a Muslim. Reconsidering Salafism, Knight explores the historical processes that informed Islam as he once knew it, having converted to a Salafi vision of Islam in 1994. In the decades since, he has drifted away from Salafism in favor of an alternative Islam that celebrates the freaks, misfits, and heretical innovators. What happens to Islam when everything’s up for grabs, and can an anything-goes Islam allow space for reputedly intolerant Salafism? In Why I Am a Salafi, Knight explores not only Salafism’s valorization of the origins, but takes the Salafi project further than its advocates are willing to go, and reflects upon the consequences of surrendering the origins forever.