Salafism Goes Global: From the Gulf to the French Banlieues
Mohamed-Ali Adraoui
Abstract
Salafism has emerged as one of the most visible and questioned faces in contemporary Islam. In many countries, from the East to the West, this fundamentalist vision seeking to restore a version of Islam that is supposed to be pure and unchanged is increasingly successful. This is the case in France, where thousands of Muslims are now dedicated to living this puritanical and fundamentalist religiosity. In connection with some Islamic countries, starting with Saudi Arabia, they appeal to a transnational narrative through which they promote a new face of globalization. Reacting to both political ... More
Salafism has emerged as one of the most visible and questioned faces in contemporary Islam. In many countries, from the East to the West, this fundamentalist vision seeking to restore a version of Islam that is supposed to be pure and unchanged is increasingly successful. This is the case in France, where thousands of Muslims are now dedicated to living this puritanical and fundamentalist religiosity. In connection with some Islamic countries, starting with Saudi Arabia, they appeal to a transnational narrative through which they promote a new face of globalization. Reacting to both political Islam and jihadism, they prefer to become entrepreneurs in order to seek economic success. Splitting from the rest of society, they are building a counternarrative in which they represent the purest form of the Islamic identity. Using research from a prolonged immersion in French Salafist communities, this book sheds light on the lifestyle, representations, profiles, and trajectories of these communities. By focusing on quietist Salafism and its formative ties with several Gulf countries, especially with Saudi Arabia, this book is also an attempt to understand contemporary religious globalizations. It also sheds light on a dynamic that is less centered on formal political entities and primarily refers to a globalization taking place in the margins that have been little studied for too long.
Keywords:
Salafism,
France,
Gulf,
Saudi Arabia,
hijra/migration,
radical Islam,
political Islam,
jihadism,
fundamentalism,
religious globalization
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190062460 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2020 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190062460.001.0001 |
