What is Salafism?

30 September, 2018
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Recently published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy studies, Azmi Bishara’s newest book What is Salafism? (255 pp.) presents an in-depth examination of the concept of Salafism and the historical context of the term. In four sections, the book distances itself from other works that simplify the meaning or repeatedly use words that do not add anything to the original meaning. Rather, Bishara presents a historical, academic, and critical study of Salafism, not only as a concept with a partial meaning, but as a historical term with an origin, which has been subject to transformations or adjustments in its meaning and connotations. Thus the concept of Salafism split into multiple concepts, such as reformist Salafism, proselytizing Salafism, scientific Salafism and jihadist Salafism.

Bishara digs into the history of Islam, establishing a portal through which the relationship between Salafism and Wahhabism can be understood, describing Wahhabism as one of the more recent  manifestations of Salafism.  He illustrates the problematic relationship between the Salafism of Ahl al-Athar  (supporters of narration) and the Salafism of Ibn Taymiyyah, ending up at modern day Wahhabism, which attempts to root itself in the Salafi past by combining Hanbalism and Salafism. He also conducts an analysis of modern reformist Salafism and its problematic relationship to modernity, its assimilation with scientific and civilizational progress, and the combination of national and contemporary calls for modernisation such as the reformist Salafism of Allal al-Fassi, Mohammed Abdo and Rashid Reza.

The author notes that Wahhabism prevailed in the Arabian Peninsula because of its Najdi context and its tribal alliance with the Saud family. This meant that the da’wah (proselytizing) leadership, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, was separate from the leadership of the country and the people, Muhammad ibn Saud, in contrast with the first phase of Islam when the Prophet led Da’wah while serving as the imam at the same time. Bishara also noted that Wahhabism has a long and radical history of colliding with popular religiosity and imposing new patterns of religiosity on the people, which led the public belief that they had taken power by force.

The author does not agree with the parallel between Wahhabism and Protestantism, despite some similarities between Martin Luther and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab; they are especially similar in the speed with which they declared heresy (takfir) and the cruelty with which they imposed their interpretation of religion on the public, as well as the rebellion against the official church, which would be parallel to the Ottoman establishment. Bishara believes that Wahhabism originally began as a small trend with a puritanical orientation which did not go further than the Arabian Peninsula, except for border tribes during the seasonal Bedouin invasions of the Levant and Iraq. But Wahhabism became a proselytizing and missionary movement due to the institutionalisation of the relationship between proselytization and power and the emergence of the Saudi rentier state and society built on the revenues of oil wealth. This took place in the context of the conflict between the Egyptian and Saudi axes in the 1960s and the Western colonial exploitation of Wahhabism in the fight against the radical Arab movement, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the left-wing, and communism in the name of Islam.

The author makes an important comparison between the first wave of Wahhabism and contemporary jihadist Salafism. He invokes the scenes of the Wahhabi sack of Karbala during Eid al-Ghadir (a Shi'i day of commemoration) on 22 April 1802, slaughtering all those who stood in their way, even the elderly, women, and children, and looting the city as well as the holy shrine. This is in addition to the entry of Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to Mecca on 25 December 1802, his execution of the city's judge, Munib Effendi, and dozens of sheikhs, and demolition of Turkish domes and shrines. 

This book represents an important theoretical and analytical contribution to the critical historical understanding of all aspects of Salafism, marked by its deconstruction of common, simplified concepts, challenging them, and opening new horizons of knowledge.

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