Salafism After the Arab Awakening

This important collection, which brings together some of the most prominent and insightful researchers in the field, explores how representatives of various strands of Salafism have sought to deal with the forces unleashed during and after the Arab uprisings. The contributors show that, while the uprisings had little to do with religion in the first instance, one of their unintended consequences has been a remarkable set of transformations in the discourse, action, and social and political positioning of Salafi actors across the Middle East. Drawing on fieldwork in locations from Morocco to Kuwait, they trace new debates between scholars, activists and publics, shifts within existing movements and realignments in their relations with each other, and most importantly an effusion of newly politicized Salafi currents across the region. The most famous example of these novel political actors is the al-Nour Party in Egypt, which emerged out of historically quietist circles in Alexandria in the wake of the 2011 uprising and within months was able to ally with other new Salafi parties to secure 25 per cent of the vote in that year’s parliamentary elections. While the story of al-Nour is told here by Khalil al-Anani, other contributors—in studies mostly arranged country by country—trace less well known but nonetheless very significant shifts elsewhere. Standout chapters include one by Zoltan Pall, who shows how debates about the legitimacy of public protest and revolution led to the increasing fragmentation of the Salafi scene in Kuwait; an account by Joas Wagemakers of how Salafis in Jordan have been polarized, as the country’s Jamʿiyyat al-Kitab wa-l-Sunna movement cheered on new Salafi parties abroad and in doing so spurred renewed resistance to politicization from their quietist Salafi compatriots; and Stéphane Lacroix’s narration of unusual alliances between Sahwa figureheads, ‘Islamo-liberals’ and Shiʿi activists in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Thomas Pierret offers an impressive synthetic overview of the formidably complex, interconnected patchwork of militant movements that has emerged in the context of the Syrian civil war. Importantly, the focus on the dynamics of politicization throughout much of the volume is juxtaposed with a study by Laurent Bonnefoy of the ways in which figureheads of quietist Salafism, including the Saudi scholar Rabiʿ al-Madkhali and the Yemeni Yahya al-Hajuri, responded to this unprecedented challenge to their authority. His account underscores that, while quietists were initially caught off guard by the uprisings and found themselves in the uncomfortable position of lending support to failing rulers like Muammar al-Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh, the turmoil and violence that has followed has the potential to bolster their message that popular political contention is a recipe for chaos and divisive partisanship

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