Of Friends and Foes: Paths to Salafi Politics in the Maghreb

• In Event: Islam and Politics in MENA

Abstract

This paper looks at how prominent transnational Islamic groups, historically propagated abroad by state(-sanctioned) institutions, such as Salafi/Wahhabi actors, who claim they ‘don’t do politics’, actually do do politics. Scholarship on global politics and religious transnationalism in the Middle East and North Africa typically reduces Islamic politics to running for office and political activism. It thus typically disregards these ‘quietist’ networks as ‘pre-political’. Through a study of these networks in the Maghreb, this paper, however, contests this. Via ethnographic data, in-depth interviews, and printed and online literature, it draws on important work within social and political theory to describe and explain new forms of Salafi politics in the Maghreb.

Author

• Guy Eyre, Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg