Salafism, a theological and methodological current within Sunni Islam, has long defied neat classification. Though rooted in a call to return to the practices of the salaf—the pious predecessors—it has become a deeply contested category, invoked variously as a symbol of revivalist purity, theological rigor, socio-political quietism, or militant jihad. In both academic and public discourse, Salafism is frequently collapsed into a singular, radical ideology, particularly in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the rise of ISIS. These events have shaped a dominant narrative that identifies Salafism primarily as the ideological engine behind global jihadism. As a result, much of the scholarly literature has focused on its most militant expressions, exploring how Salafi doctrines have been radicalized to justify violence and state subversion.
Yet this framing risks flattening a far more diverse movement. The majority of Salafis worldwide do not align with jihadist militancy; instead, they occupy a broad spectrum—from politically quietist scholars to socially engaged activists—all claiming fidelity to scriptural purity and the model of the early generations. What binds them is less a coherent political agenda than a shared epistemology: an emphasis on direct textual engagement, the rejection of innovation (bidʿa), and the aspiration to revive an authentic, pristine Islam. In this sense, Salafism is best understood as a sub-tradition within Sunni Islam, one that positions itself both within and against the broader Islamic tradition. It draws upon classical sources and legitimates itself through established lineages of scholarship, even as it often critiques mainstream practices as corrupted or compromised. But what precisely is Salafism? Is it a theology, a method, a social movement, or a discursive tradition? And how has it negotiated the pressures of modernity, politics, and globalisation while preserving its claim to normative authenticity?
To move beyond essentialist accounts and better grasp the historical and conceptual complexity of Salafism, we turn to three recent academic interventions that interrogate the tradition from distinct but complementary angles. Each of these works reframes our understanding of Salafism by rooting it in its intellectual genealogies, social manifestations, and adaptive strategies under conditions of modernity. Where prevailing academic studies often isolate Salafism as a monolithic or extremist aberration, these works reveal a far more variegated landscape—shaped by internal debates, evolving state relationships, and the everyday practices of believers.
To move beyond essentialist accounts and better grasp the historical and conceptual complexity of Salafism, we turn to three recent academic interventions that interrogate the tradition from distinct but complementary angles. Each of these works reframes our understanding of Salafism by rooting it in its intellectual genealogies, social manifestations, and adaptive strategies under conditions of modernity. Where prevailing academic studies often isolate Salafism as a monolithic or extremist aberration, these works reveal a far more variegated landscape—shaped by internal debates, evolving state relationships, and the everyday practices of believers. By examining Salafism through the lenses of theology, transnational politics, and cultural production, these authors help us see not only how Salafism has changed, but how it has changed us. We begin with Raihan Ismail’s Rethinking Salafism, which provides a vital typology of Salafi currents and offers a critical foundation for understanding its internal diversity. From there, Cole Bunzel’s Wahhabism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement draws us back to one of the tradition’s most consequential origin points: the alliance of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and the Saudi polity. Finally, Aaron Rock-Singer’s In the Shade of the Sunna shifts the lens to embodied piety and cultural production, illustrating how the formation of modern Salafi subjectivity unfolded through ritual, aesthetics, and gendered social norms. Together, these works illuminate Salafism not as a singular doctrine but as a contested and evolving tradition—one that both reflects and shapes the broader transformations of Islamic thought in the modern world, and invites a more nuanced account of what this thing called ‘Salafism’ really is.[1]
Raihan Ismail’s Rethinking Salafism: Diversity, Dislocation, and the Struggle for Orthodoxy
In Western academic studies, Salafism is often explored through the lens of political change—particularly jihadism—leaving other vital trends underexamined. In doing so, the dominant scholarship has obscured the significance of two other influential currents: the quietist (those who endorse an apolitical tradition, believing that political activism is unacceptable in any form) and haraki (those who advocate nonviolent political change) streams. These two groups arguably serve as the guardians and custodians of Salafism today.
It is in this context that Raihan Ismail’s Rethinking Salafism: The Transnational Networks of Salafi Islam in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries offers a valuable intervention. Ismail portrays Salafism as a dynamic and internally diverse sub-tradition within Sunni Islam. By situating it within the broader landscape of Islamic thought, she critiques reductionist views and highlights its internal complexity. Ismail shows that Salafi divisions are fluid, shaped by socio-political contexts and the movement’s engagement with modernity. Rethinking Salafism offers a nuanced account of one of modern Islam’s most influential currents, underscoring its adaptability, tensions, and role in shaping contemporary Muslim societies and global Islamic discourse.
Ismail’s study is structured around three analytical goals; firstly, by mapping transnational Salafi networks, she shows how Salafi ʿulama across national borders form shared religious communities through education, travel, and communication. These networks facilitate a collective Salafi identity, a kind of imagined umma, that transcends national borders. Secondly, by exploring local and regional contexts, the book highlights how domestic political, social, and theological environments influence the contours of Salafi thought. Finally, she critiques existing academic typologies. Ismail interrogates the classification outlined by Quintan Wiktorowicz[2] that categorizes Salafis as belonging either to jihadi, haraki or quietist camps, convincingly arguing that such a classification does not account for Salafi internal diversity—especially in social and sectarian issues. To highlight that diversity, Ismail explores four themes: political Islam, Sunni-Shiʿa relations, jihad and Salafism, and social issues, and maps out various stances taken by Salafi scholars.
What becomes clear from Ismail’s work is the remarkable vibrancy of Salafism. Indeed, the academic typologies often used to categorise Salafism—especially those based on political engagement—can distort more than they clarify. This is particularly evident in Ismail’s chapter on Salafi discourse surrounding the Sunni–Shiʿa divide.
Sectarianism and the Politics of Anti-Shiʿism
The Iranian Revolution of 1978–79 triggered waves of anti-Shiʿa polemics across the region, including from Salafi scholars in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and in Egypt. Likewise, the 2011 Syrian uprising intensified sectarian discourse, as Salafi scholars framed the conflict as a Sunni struggle against Shiʿa-aligned forces. These responses were transnational, disseminated through books, fatwas, conferences, satellite channels, and social media.
However, these expressions of sectarianism have not been uniform. Domestic contexts shape Salafi approaches significantly. In Egypt, where the Shiʿa population is marginal, Salafi scholars maintain an abstract and doctrinally rigid rejection of Shiʿism. In Saudi Arabia, anti-Shiʿa discourse is often state-sanctioned and embedded within a broader project of national identity formation. Kuwait, with its more pluralistic society and mixed sectarian demographics, has produced a more moderated discourse, and Salafi clerics adopt more calibrated rhetoric, occasionally engaging in outreach or inter-sectarian dialogue.
Notably, Ismail draws attention to a small but significant group of ‘progressive’ ʿulama—such as Sh. Salman al-ʿAwdah in Saudi Arabia and Sh. Hakim al-Mutayri in Kuwait—who reject inflammatory sectarian rhetoric and view Shiʿa as fellow citizens rather than agents of Iran. The emergence of these figures from both quietist and haraki backgrounds, reveals how simplistic typologies fail to capture Salafi diversity on sectarian questions. Ultimately, Ismail’s comparative lens highlights one of the book’s core strengths: Salafi sectarianism cannot be understood solely through rigid ideological categories, and instead, reveals the importance of local political dynamics, communal relations, and the broader geopolitical context.
Tradition in Transition: Salafi Responses to Social Change
The inadequacy of such typologies is also laid bare in perhaps the most compelling chapter, one that explores the understudied social sphere, in which Ismail offers a veritable smorgasbord of Salafi views on issues such as gender roles, education, digital media, and charitable work. It is here that tensions between Salafi conservatism and the demands of modernity become most visible.
Salafi ʿulama have long presented themselves as guardians of traditional morality in the face of Westernization. This results in intense discussions about proper attire, the status of women, female public participation, and the permissibility of co-education. Yet, despite shared doctrinal foundations, Ismail reveals that ʿulama differ markedly over the appropriate level of cultural accommodation and how to engage with contemporary social realities.
Ismail’s comparative approach highlights how these differences are shaped by local contexts. Kuwait shows more flexibility due to its pluralist makeup; Saudi Arabia maintains strict norms, marked by institutional religious rigidity, with the state limiting public dissent; while Egypt emerges as a contested space, revealing an internal struggle over Salafi identity.
Ismail’s comparative approach highlights how these differences are shaped by local contexts. Kuwait shows more flexibility due to its pluralist makeup; Saudi Arabia maintains strict norms, marked by institutional religious rigidity, with the state limiting public dissent; while Egypt emerges as a contested space, revealing an internal struggle over Salafi identity.
Crucially, Ismail demonstrates that the dominant Western academic typology of quietist versus haraki Salafism has little to no relevance in explaining Salafi approaches to social issues. Instead, just as she does for sectarian matters, she offers a distinction between socially conservative and socially progressive ʿulama. The majority remain socially conservative, holding to traditionalist norms and resisting cultural adaptation. However, a small yet influential group of socially progressive scholars offer more flexible interpretations of Salafi thought, revealing a very different understanding of Muslim society and how it is located in modernity. One such example is the Saudi scholar Sh. Hātim al-ʿAwnī, who argues for women’s right to drive, the permissibility of music, and engagement in non-Muslim celebrations—positions that challenge established Salafi norms.[3]
Although socially progressive ʿulama are small in number, their views have not been ignored by conservative ʿulama, and they provoke significant rebuttals from conservative scholars, who see such positions as threats to a unified Salafi identity. These debates blur the lines of existing typologies: both conservative and progressive views cut across the quietist/haraki divide. By foregrounding these internal disagreements, Ismail challenges reductive classifications and shows the depth of the debates inspired by modernity, culture, and social life that animate contemporary Salafi discourse.
The Limits of Existing Typologies
Ismail’s most sustained critique is methodological: the political classifications often used by scholars—quietist, activist, jihadi—cannot capture the theological and social breadth of Salafi discourse. Doctrinal unity often coexists with disagreement on practice, tone, and public engagement. She argues that a progressive-conservative spectrum proves more fruitful in understanding the Salafi engagement with modernity. Ismail’s contribution lies therefore in shifting the analytical lens: Salafism is not a closed tradition but one shaped by transnational networks, responsive to local contexts, and capable of contesting even its own boundaries. Her book underscores that political engagement is only one dimension of Salafi life; creed, ritual, gender, law, and sectarian relations are equally important.
In an era where Salafism is often caricatured as either inherently violent or politically quiescent, Ismail’s Rethinking Salafism offers a much-needed corrective—one that emphasizes complexity, diversity, and adaptability within Salafi traditions.
Salafism as a Reformist Tradition
While Rethinking Salafism succeeds in highlighting Salafi diversity, it presents Salafism as a tradition deeply rooted in Hanbali orthodoxy without sufficiently addressing its self-conscious reformist and revisionist nature. Yet, Salafism is not merely a continuation of Hanbali thought—it defines itself through a deliberate rejection of much of the Islamic scholarly tradition that followed the salaf. Figures like Sh. Rashid Rida (d. 1935), and Sh. Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (d. 1999), did not simply inherit tradition; they actively rejected large parts, purging it of what they deemed as later deviations and sterile accretions, in order to restore what they saw as the purity of early Islam.
This aspect of Salafism as a reformist challenge to mainstream Islam is underplayed in the book, and is not a small conceptual oversight. It is arguable that this reformist logic is central to Salafi identity. Without acknowledging what Salafism seeks to correct or transcend, it is hard to explain the polemical energy and oppositional posture that defines the movement. As a result, the book never fully explores the parameters of the ‘mainstream tradition’ that Salafism positions itself against.
This leads to what is perhaps the most fundamental absence in Rethinking Salafism: a sustained exploration of how Salafis conceive of themselves—how do Salafis understand their relationship to tradition, reform, and authenticity? While the book surveys positions, it does not investigate the underlying grammar of Salafi self-understanding: what it means to restore an idealized past, to reject taqlid, or to claim custodianship of orthodoxy in a modern world. This grammar, if we can call it that, is essential for understanding how Salafism relates to the mainstream.
A fuller understanding of Salafism requires not only engagement with its contemporary expressions but also careful attention to its formative intellectual lineages. Among these, Wahhabism represents a particularly influential tributary. Although often collapsed into Salafism in popular and polemical discourse, Wahhabism emerged as a distinct movement with its own historical trajectory and theological emphases—most notably its uncompromising commitment to tawḥīd (monotheism), its rejection of bidʿa and shirk (innovation and associating partners with God), and its deployment of takfir (excommunication) as a political and theological tool. Examining Wahhabism on its own terms offers a valuable lens through which to better understand the architecture of Salafi thought, especially its reformist ethos and its claim to scriptural authenticity. It is here that Cole Bunzel’s Wahhabism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement proves especially instructive.
Cole Bunzel’s Wahhabism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement: Polemics, Power, and the Problem of Takfīr
Cole Bunzel’s Wahhabism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement is both a careful historical reconstruction and a subversive intellectual intervention. Drawing on Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s own writings as well as contemporary Najdi polemical manuscripts and later Wahhabi histories, Bunzel presents not simply the biography of a movement, but a mirror held to ongoing debates about tradition, statecraft, and the boundaries of orthodoxy. He argues that Wahhabism was born as a militant reformist tradition aimed at purifying Islam of innovations and polytheism, rooted in the belief that the essence of tawḥīd had been forgotten. Bunzel’s work is subversive not simply because of what it says about Wahhabism, but because of how it forces us to confront the unresolved tensions at the heart of the modern Salafi identity.
Bunzel situates Sh. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s (d. 1798), henceforth MIAW, project within the broader Islamic tradition, framing it as a reformist movement that arose in eighteenth-century Najd, a marginal region distant from the established centres of Islamic learning. At its core, Wahhabism was a campaign of radical theological purification. Influenced by the medieval Hanbali jurist Sh Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), MIAW believed that shirk—particularly in the form of saint veneration, shrine visitation, and intercessory practices—had become widespread in the Muslim world. These, in his view, were not benign cultural accretions but acts of polytheism akin to the idolatry of pre-Islamic Arabia. As Bunzel puts it, “[b]oth were non-conformists, but whereas Ibn Taymiyya was an iconoclast, MIAW was a revolutionary.” MIAW’s writings implied not only that the essence of tawḥīd had been lost, but that only his interpretation could restore Islam to its original purity. Bunzel emphasizes that this uncompromising stance placed Wahhabism in opposition to mainstream Sunni practices, setting the stage for both its theological rigor and its militant tendencies.
The proposed remedy was a renewed commitment to tawḥīd combined with an insistence on manifesting hatred and enmity toward shirk and those seen as practicing it. What this “hatred and enmity” toward polytheists meant in practice is not usually spelled out by Wahhābī scholars, but the general idea is clear: Muslims must actively oppose and antagonize those perceived as committing shirk. In Wahhābī Islam as originally conceived, true Muslims are expected to be spirited antagonists, not passive believers. They are impelled by their monotheistic doctrine to show hostility to those who violate their strict understanding of tawḥīd. So while it is undeniable that MIAW’s theological critique of shirk was rooted in the Hanbali tradition, his radicalism lay in how he recast daʿwa as an urgent call for political rupture.
A Critique of the Cult of the Saints; Popular Reception and Transregional Echoes
There is little doubt that MIAW’s message found popular resonance. Despite numerous scholarly refutations, including from his own brother, his daʿwa clearly struck a chord with many. Bunzel does not dwell on the reasons for this appeal, but it is difficult to believe his widespread support was due to coercion alone. More plausibly, his critique of devotional practices associated with Sufism, such as veneration, shrine visitation, and ritual innovation spoke to broader discomfort amongst the masses. Similar concerns were voiced by like-minded scholars across the Islamic world, suggesting that his movement was not a parochial eruption from Najd, but part of a wider early modern ferment marked by anxieties over popular piety and the limits of orthodoxy.
This broader resonance is exemplified by the case of the Yemeni hadith scholar and Zaydi jurist Sh. Muḥammad al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 1768), who briefly praised MIAW’s call to restore tawḥīd. Bunzel details that he later softened this endorsement, yet the episode reveals the wider traction Wahhābī themes held among 18th-century hadith-oriented reformers. More broadly, the Wahhābī critique of Sufism was far from unprecedented. Predating the Wahhabi movement in Ottoman Turkey, the Kadızadelis had already waged campaigns against Sufi rituals they deemed deviant, such as the whirling of the Mevlevi dervishes, representing an earlier manifestation of scripturalist reaction against mystical excesses. In North Africa, contemporary Sh. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Sanūsī (d. 1859), took a more integrative approach: rather than rejecting Sufism outright, he sought to reform its structures, blending spiritual discipline with a sober, orthodox theology rooted in hadith scholarship and Sharia. Similarly, in South Asia, the Deobandī ʿulama maintained deep affiliations with Sufi metaphysics and lineages, yet rejected common popular practices such as grave veneration and saintly intercession, emphasizing a more restrained, law-bound piety. Despite their differences, these movements shared a drive to curb perceived religious innovation and reaffirm textual authority.
The proliferation of such critiques across disparate geographies—from Ottoman Anatolia to Yemen, North Africa, and South Asia—suggests that something was indeed deeply unsettled within the house of Islam. The scholarly and urbane presentations of Sufism given to the Muslims masses today, is, in many ways, a product of these reformist pressures. It would be misleading to let this post-reform Sufism obscure the fact that, historically, popular Sufi practices provoked intense and sustained concern across the scholarly spectrum.[4]
While structural and doctrinal factors help explain the traction of MIAW’s message, personality must not be discounted. Another under-appreciated aspect is the extraordinary figure of MIAW himself, a man of remarkable consequence in Islamic history. Though Ibn Taymiyya, was undoubtedly a more brilliant and original scholar, MIAW far surpassed him in communicative force. He had a unique ability to translate complex theological concerns into accessible, emotionally charged appeals. This may explain why many traditional scholars continue to underrate his achievement—not because his influence was negligible, but because it did not conform to their scholarly ideals, which privilege erudition over mass persuasion.
The MIAW that emerges from Bunzel’s books is not merely a theologian but a skilled propagandist, political actor, and charismatic leader. His daʿwa, though rooted in hadith scholarship, was marked by sharp populist instincts. By the time of his death, his legacy extended beyond texts: he had helped inspire a movement with territory, hierarchy, and the rudiments of statehood—a small empire in the heart of Arabia, whose reverberations are still felt today.
Khārijism and the Politics of Excommunication
At the heart of modern debates over Wahhābism lies a central tension: was MIAW a takfīrī or not? Some today—including prominent Sufis as well as Salafis—insist he was not, claiming that his takfīr was limited and has been mischaracterised. Yet the earliest Wahhābī chronicles seem to suggest otherwise. Certainly, as Bunzel carefully reconstructs, MIAW’s contemporary critics thought so, and not merely as rhetorical insults. Multiple early Wahhābī sources confirm the accusation that MIAW “declared Muslims unbelievers and permitted their blood and property”—not as missteps, but as policy. The structural parallels with Khārijism were hard to ignore: anathematizing sinful Muslims, declaring their lands dār al-ḥarb, and legitimating jihad against them. What’s striking is that the Wahhābī response was rarely to deny the resemblance outright, but to reframe it: “We are not Khārijites, we merely uphold the clear texts on tawḥīd.” Still, their insistence on not being Khārijites hints at a deeper worry—that their own views might be seen as crossing the line into heresy, and out of the bounds of orthodoxy.
How, then, do we reconcile these competing claims—the historical evidence of wide-reaching takfīr, and modern denials of Khārijite resemblance? One might respond: “It depends how we define Khārijism and takfīr”—but that, of course, is precisely the point. The problem is not simply theological hair-splitting. It is a question of fidelity to historical sources. It is no good citing sanitized selections and then claiming definitiveness. The modern interpreter, whether Salafi or Sufi, is only as persuasive as their engagement with the entirety of sources. A curated apologetic, however eloquent, cannot substitute for honest historiography.
Bunzel demonstrates that historical sources reveal that in Wahhābī doctrine lies a sharp distinction between tawḥīd and shirk, but more crucially between those who uphold tawḥīd and deemed truly Muslim and those who must be fought because they do not. Unlike Ibn Taymiyya, who allowed room for legal excuse through ignorance (ʿudhr bi’l-jahl), MIAW hardened the boundaries: tawḥīd demanded not only correct belief, but active hostility toward polytheists, even if they called themselves Muslim.
Indeed, even if some Wahhābī texts contain gestures toward moderation, Bunzel argues these were not evidence of doctrinal restraint, but tactical ambiguities; calculated efforts to deflect critique, not reflect doctrinal shifts. That ambiguity, however, did not prevent unease within the movement itself. The writings of early Wahhābīs appear unsettled by these internal contradictions, though ultimately these hesitations were sidelined. The dominant presumption held: vast swaths of Muslims were disbelievers, and jihad against them was not merely permissible but necessary. For MIAW, shirk was not simply a theological error—it was the basis for a political theology of purification, to be imposed by force if required.
To grasp the original impulse of MIAW’s daʿwa, it is crucial to examine how his doctrines were understood and enacted by his earliest followers. Consider, for instance, the behaviour of the First Saudi State when it sent an envoy to the Ottoman governor of Baghdad. As Bunzel recounts: “The Wahhābī envoy thus strode nonchalantly into the Ottoman governor’s palace in Baghdad, addressed him as an infidel, and offered to provide him instruction in Islam. Sulaymān Bāshā was shocked at such behaviour.” Was this merely the excessive zeal of an unrepresentative disciple? Or does it reflect the foundational ethos of the movement?
It is curious that the contemporary heirs of Wahhābism, who ground their legitimacy in fidelity to the salaf, so readily dismiss the actions of their own earliest predecessors. If these first- and second-generation Wahhābīs were directly taught by MIAW himself, surely their interpretations should carry some interpretive weight? The rampant takfīr espoused by these early followers, rather than being waved away as historical excess, deserves closer scrutiny as a potential reflection of the daʿwa’s essential character. Unless, of course, contemporary Salafis are prepared to argue that they understand MIAW’s teachings better than his own students.
These radical origins complicate the triumphalist state narrative of Wahhābism as simply a reformist return to true Islam. The movement’s early expansion was not merely spiritual—it was violent, exclusivist, and revolutionary. But how did such a movement morph into the official ideology of a modern monarchy that now champions moderation? The answer, Bunzel argues, lies in the transformation of Wahhabism through its alliance with the House of Saud, a story of ideological domestication, political expedience, and selective memory.
From Insurgency to State Ideology, and the Trouble with Historical Memory
Wahhabism’s transformation from theological insurgency to state orthodoxy was a result of its alliance with the Al Saud family. This pact between sword and sermon birthed the First Saudi State and laid the groundwork for the eventual emergence of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Bunzel’s account traces the implications of this alliance: how a revolutionary movement once at war with surrounding Muslim powers was eventually absorbed into the heart of the Muslim world.
Over time, the once-militant tradition was softened, reinterpreted, and ultimately “domesticated” to serve the needs of the state. The sharp edges of takfīr were softened, radical exclusivism gave way to a theology of loyalty to rulers, and a militant creed was gradually reimagined to serve the needs of a modern nation-state. But this transformation, Bunzel argues, was not a sign of theological maturation—it was a result of political expedience.[5] In the process of integrating Wahhabism into the machinery of statehood, Saudi clerics reinterpreted MIAW’s legacy in ways that blurred the line between religious orthodoxy and regime preservation.
How, then, did Wahhabism evolve from a radically exclusionary movement into a contemporary discourse that, while still marked by intolerance, at least grudgingly acknowledges Muslims outside its fold as believers? Bunzel identifies two key shifts. First, the waning influence of saint veneration and popular Sufi rituals in the Muslim world lessened the intensity of Wahhābī critiques. Second, and more decisively, King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl Suʿūd (d. 1953) played a central role in taming the movement, forcing it to conform to the imperatives of statecraft and diplomacy, and integrating it into the Islamic mainstream.
Even so, the tension within Wahhabism remains unresolved. Today’s Salafis live in the uneasy space between the radical purity of the early daʿwa and the domesticated theology of modern Saudi Arabia. Modern interpreters, whether Western Academics[6] or Muslims scholars,[7] tend to read historical sources through a contemporary Wahhābī lens, obscuring this ideological tension. However, such an approach is methodologically flawed. The credibility of modern interpretations hinges on their fidelity to the full historical archive. It is not enough to cite select passages and declare the matter settled. Whether one is a Salafi, Sufi, or scholar of any persuasion, the only intellectually honest approach is to grapple with the entire textual tradition. Cherry-picking to suit present needs—whether to sanitize Wahhabism for state legitimacy or to defend an apologetic narrative—does little to clarify the past.
To his credit, Bunzel refuses this tendency. He does not rely on curated selections or apologetic framings. Instead, he confronts the primary sources head-on—from al-Durar al-Saniyya to Tārīkh Ibn Ghannām and Ibn Bishr. These texts are not obscure; they are widely available—though, tellingly, not always within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself.
For this reason, Bunzel’s book is both groundbreaking and subversive. It foregrounds primary materials that are available, yet too often ignored, and refuses to flinch from their implications. It is unsurprising that many Arabic-language publishers shy away from such critical treatments, as their conclusions challenge the official narratives of one of the region’s most powerful states and risk jeopardising access to an important market. In a scholarly climate shaped by both Gulf sensitivities and the ideological entanglements of Western institutions, Wahhābism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement is a rare work—both rigorous in its scholarship and unafraid of its conclusions.
The Contested Legacy of Wahhabism
Bunzel argues that it is not accidental that modern jihadist groups, including the Islamic State, see themselves as heirs to MIAW’s project. Groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS explicitly trace their doctrines to writings of MIAW; his views on takfir, and his anti-Sufi, anti-Ashari stances all directly provide theological fuel for modern jihadism. Academics and modern Salafis who attempt to separate “good Salafism” from “bad jihadism” ignore this shared intellectual lineage. Whether his ideas naturally lend themselves to militancy, or are merely misread, is a live question. That this causes anxiety among modern Wahhābī scholars is telling. But either way, the appeal of Wahhābism to modern jihadist movements is not incidental. The question then remains; is this resemblance a bug, or is it, in some unsettling way, a feature?
On this issue, Bunzel’s treatment is notably cursory; it is suggestive rather than definitive, and ultimately leaves the reader wanting more. Given his broader focus on contemporary jihadi movements, it is perhaps unsurprising that he draws such connections. Yet the argument feels strained.
On this issue, Bunzel’s treatment is notably cursory; it is suggestive rather than definitive, and ultimately leaves the reader wanting more. Given his broader focus on contemporary jihadi movements, it is perhaps unsurprising that he draws such connections. Yet the argument feels strained. While it may be tempting to trace the extremism of the Sahwa and jihadi currents back to MIAW, such a framing risks obscuring a basic historical reality: that thinkers such as 20th-century Sayyid Quṭb, writing amid the upheavals of modernity, colonialism, and postcolonial repression, speak more directly to the anxieties of modern readers than an 18th-century scholar whose primary concerns were theological.[8] Perhaps it is more accurate to say that while modern jihadism draws selectively on Wahhābī theology, it is Quṭb’s synthesis of political ideology and religious fervour that bears greater responsibility for shaping its character.
The legacy of MIAW today is torn between competing narratives. Contemporary Salafis, especially those aligned with state-sponsored clerical institutions, often deny or downplay the more extreme dimensions of their intellectual heritage. Others selectively defend them—admitting that the movement’s critique of Sufi excess or man-made law has merit, while distancing themselves from its more controversial pronouncements. And still others, particularly in jihadist movements, unabashedly embrace the original doctrine in its uncompromising totality, claiming MIAW as their ideological ancestor. As Bunzel demonstrates, the struggle over MIAW’s legacy reveals just how potent, and unresolved, the question of Wahhābism remains. In this light, Wahhābism emerges not merely as a set of doctrines or the legacy of a single reformer, but as a contested tradition—claimed, denied, and reinterpreted—whose aftershocks continue to shape the fault lines of the modern Muslim world.
Yet it would be a mistake to understand Salafism solely through the prism of early Wahhabism, even if many scholars and critics continue to do so. While Wahhabism remains a significant tributary to the broader Salafi current, explaining contemporary Salafism entirely through its formative moments risks committing a genetic fallacy—assuming that origins determine present meaning. This tendency is especially pronounced in works shaped by an interest in jihadi movements, where continuity with early Wahhabism can appear more salient than rupture. For instance, Cole Bunzel’s seminal scholarship, focused largely on jihadist currents, understandably foregrounds Wahhabism as a foundational touchstone. Yet this emphasis may obscure the many ways Salafi thought has evolved in non-jihadi contexts, across pedagogical, social, and institutional domains. In this way, an origin-focused approach can flatten transformation: it tells us where ideas began, but not how they were reconfigured across time and place. If Salafism has changed since the eighteenth-century Najdi daʿwa, how exactly has it done so? And if we adopt a historical lens, what sources help us trace these shifts—not only in doctrine, but also in social practice, pedagogy, and everyday life? This is where In the Shade of the Sunna: Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East by Aaron Rock-Singer makes a vital contribution.
Aaron Rock-Singer’s In the Shade of the Sunna: Reframing Salafism and the Making of Tradition
If contemporary Salafism cannot be fully explained through the lens of Wahhabism alone, nor reduced to a top-down Saudi export, then what is needed is a more grounded account—one that captures the movement’s social, institutional, and transnational complexity. Aaron Rock-Singer’s In the Shade of the Sunna: Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East offers precisely that: a nuanced, quietly radical account of Salafism’s twentieth-century development. Radical not in tone or polemic, but in method—by shifting the focus from elite theology to the institutional and everyday practices through which Salafism was formed, transmitted, and lived. What emerges is not a vision of Salafism as an unbroken inheritance from the Prophet’s generation, but as a modern project of religious reform—animated by the aspiration to recover a purified tradition, yet deeply entangled in the political and cultural forces of modernity.
Rock-Singer centers the embodied practices and communal disciplines of Salafi life, showing how they were shaped by—and responded to—the upheavals of colonialism, secularism, and state formation. From standardized prayer rituals to gender norms and dress codes, Salafi leaders sought not only to reform belief, but to remake everyday Muslim life in visibly distinct ways. Salafism, in this telling, is not merely a theological doctrine, but a lived tradition—one whose authority was built through institutions, publications, study circles, and disciplined habits of the self.
The book also attends to the internal tensions that fractured Salafi movements across the century, revealing how debates over authenticity, authority, and adaptation mirrored broader struggles over modernity, state control, and global Islamic identity. In the Shade of the Sunna offers a fresh perspective by foregrounding Salafism’s social and cultural dimensions, and there’s no doubt this book will set the agenda for future discussions—not only on Salafism, but on how Islamic tradition itself is understood in the modern age. In the Shade of the Sunna thus offers a compelling reorientation: Salafism is presented not simply as a reaction to modernity, but as a formative force within it—shaping new modes of religious life, and reframing how Islamic tradition itself is imagined and practiced in the modern age.
Salafi Practice and the Contest Over Tradition
A key insight Rock-Singer offers is that Salafism should not be seen as simply a theological school or movement. As we have noted, Salafism asserts a claim to define the tradition itself—to decide what counts as authoritative Islam, who gets to interpret it, and which practices form the authentic core. Salafism’s power lies in its rhetorical posture: it presents its legal and theological positions as directly extracted from foundational texts without mediation. These positions are framed as self-evident, faithfully transmitted from the earliest Muslim community, and thus the only valid interpretations. Other views are implicitly—or explicitly—dismissed as weak, inauthentic, or corrupted by historical interpolations.
But Rock-Singer urges us to take these claims cautiously. He documents how many practices now seen as markers of Salafi orthodoxy—such as thick beards, isbāl (wearing trousers above the ankles), gender segregation, and even praying in shoes— are not ancient fixtures, but relatively recent phenomena. Drawing on an impressive range of print media, fatwas, magazines, and articles, he shows how these practices moved from the margins to the center of Salafi identity; resulting in the emergence of a kind of Salafi uniform.
This is not to say these practices lack precedent or are unorthodox; they are grounded in textual precedent. Rather, their recent centrality and standardization is novel, and represent a rupture with earlier tradition. This is where Rock-Singer’s method shines: instead of contesting the textual legitimacy of these practices, he shows how they were popularized through new media—especially Salafi magazines. He even includes images of prominent Salafi scholars happily wearing garments below the ankles, offering visual counterpoints to current orthodoxy. What Rock-Singer shows then is how the deployment, visibility, and centrality of these practices are the product of historical choices—shaped by social pressures, state policies, and institutional infrastructures.
The Case of Praying in Shoes: A Salafi Rise and Retreat
The example of praying in shoes is particularly illustrative. Although the practice is attested in early prophetic hadith literature, it remained marginal among Muslims until the early twentieth century. Rock-Singer shows how Egyptian Salafis in the 1920s to 1940s revived this Prophetic practice—not simply as a return to the Sunnah, but as a marker of religious identity. In Egypt’s competitive religious landscape, wearing shoes while praying became a distinctive symbol of Salafi piety. However, as political and social conditions shifted—especially with Nasser’s suppression of religious groups and the increasing nationalization of mosques from the 1980s onwards—the practice began to marginalize. State-led modern hygiene regulations, which conflated cleanliness with religious purity, further discouraged praying in shoes. Interestingly, by the 1990s, prominent Salafi scholars issued fatwas opposing the practice on the same hygiene and social cohesion grounds that critics had used in the 1950s.
This example goes beyond the specific practice of praying in shoes; it highlights the malleability of religious practice—even within a tradition that claims immutability. This is where Rock-Singer’s method proves especially powerful: rather than engaging in abstract doctrinal debates, he traces how these practices emerged, circulated, and declined over time. He reveals not only how many Salafi norms are novel, but also how historically contingent they are, no less so than the mainstream positions they critique. To be clear, his point is not that Salafi fiqh is flawed or less valid, but that claims to superior authenticity and textual purity often betray a shallow understanding of juristic tradition—and an even shallower self-awareness of how Salafi fiqh itself developed. By the book’s conclusion, he quietly dismantles the illusion that Salafi jurisprudence simply “follows the texts,” while the broader Islamic tradition is shaped by history, and debunks the notion that Salafi positions are pristine reflections of the first generation, untouched by fourteen centuries of legal development. The Salafi tradition, in short, is subject to the very forces it claims to transcend—and Rock-Singer brings the receipts.
Salafism, Modernity, and the Rise of the State
Another key theme is the interplay between Salafi activism, modernity, and the rise of the modern state. Rock-Singer traces how Salafi actors navigated the changing political, urban, and intellectual landscape of the 20th century, exploring how Salafism both adapted to and resisted state-building, secularization, and modernization. He shows how media, educational institutions, and religious infrastructure helped propagate Salafi norms and embed them into daily life.
Crucially, unlike many other academics of Salafism, Rock-Singer resists reducing tradition to politics. Instead, he highlights how Salafi practices interacted with material realities: urbanization, literacy, the emergence of new reading publics, ideological competition, and shifting gender norms. These forces help explain not just why certain practices emerged, but also how they became central—and why, in some cases, they were later abandoned.
Crucially, unlike many other academics of Salafism, Rock-Singer resists reducing tradition to politics. Instead, he highlights how Salafi practices interacted with material realities: urbanization, literacy, the emergence of new reading publics, ideological competition, and shifting gender norms. These forces help explain not just why certain practices emerged, but also how they became central—and why, in some cases, they were later abandoned.
Three pivotal transformations coincide with the rise of Salafism: first, increased literacy enabled Muslims to access religious texts directly; second, the collapse of Pan-Arabism discredited older institutions allied with secular Arab nationalism; third, Saudi oil wealth enabled the global dissemination of Salafi thought. Together, these factors produced a fertile ground for a vision of Islam that emphasized purity, individual agency, and direct access to texts—even as that vision was also deeply shaped by modernity. He uses these factors to explain not only why practices were adopted, but also how they came to be seen as central to changes in the traditions, as well as why these very changes were later abandoned.
Rock-Singer’s comparative analysis of Egypt and Saudi Arabia is especially illuminating, showing how differing structural and political contexts shaped divergent Salafi trajectories. In Egypt, rapid population growth (from 14 to 30 million) led to urban crowding and inevitable gender mixing. In Egypt’s crowded urban landscape, where Salafis competed with Muslim Brotherhood and Azhar-based visions of religiosity, Salafi actors emphasized modesty and comportment as a way to reassert religious ethics in a secularizing environment. Here, the late Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety offers a vital supplement: her ethnography shows how Salafi women embraced this ethical rigor not from naïveté, but to imbue everyday life with religious meaning—challenging both liberal dismissals and mainstream Islamic condescension.
By contrast, Saudi Arabia’s oil-fueled wealth enabled top-down, state-led religious enforcement—mosques, universities, schools—which institutionalized gender segregation and reinforced Wahhabi dominance. In this context, Salafism was not a countercultural movement, but an establishment project. Wahhabi scholars used the new religious infrastructure to reassert their authority, positioning themselves as guardians of orthodoxy against both Salafi purists like Sh. Al-Albani and activist-inflected reformers like the Sahwa movement led by figures such as Juhayman al-Otaybi (d.1980); in other words, the ankles of the Saudi establishment were being nibbled from both sides, by Salafi purists on one flank and political dissenters on the other.
Clearly, the rapid urbanization and rise in female workforce participation were understood quite differently in densely populated Egypt compared to oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Rock-Singer reminds us that to truly grasp Salafi debates on gender interaction, we must pay attention not only to juristic argumentation, but also to the underlying visions of society that these jurists tacitly assume.
Reimagining Tradition Beyond the Binary
In the Shade of the Sunna is essential reading, not just for students of Salafism, but for anyone serious about Islamic thought today; indeed for anyone interested in how religious tradition is lived, constructed, and contested. It avoids simplistic binaries like “authentic vs. innovative” or “traditional vs. reformist.” Instead, it opens up more honest, historically grounded, and sociologically informed conversations. By the end of the book, the myth of Salafi transcendence—that its positions are pristinely preserved from the early generations—is gently but decisively dismantled. Rock-Singer does not argue that Salafi fiqh is uniquely flawed or invalid. Rather, he shows that its claims to unique authenticity rest on selective historical readings and modern dissemination tools.
Rock-Singer convincingly argues that Salafi practice arose in response to modern pressures—urban anonymity, secular state control, and global religious competition—yet presented itself as timeless and untouched by history. This is one of Rock-Singer’s key insights: Salafism is not the antithesis of modernity, but one of its products. Its call for purity, immediacy, and unmediated authenticity reflects the very logic of secular modernity it claims to resist. The desire to bypass centuries of scholarly mediation in favor of a direct relationship with the Qur’an and Sunna reflects a deeply modern sensibility: a distrust of inherited authority, an emphasis on individual agency, and a belief that the past can be purified and retrieved intact. In this way, Salafism shares the epistemological instincts of modern secular projects, even as it claims to reject them.
And in case you need more incentive: Rock-Singer is that rare academic who does not write like one. In the Shade of the Sunna is a pleasure to read—lucid, sharp, and refreshingly unpretentious. It will be no great surprise if it escapes the confines of academia, and appears in polemics near you—Rock-Singer after all brings the receipts. But ideally, it will inspire more than polemics. It should shift how we approach religious history: not as a fixed archive of doctrines, but as a living tradition—shaped by people, politics, texts, and the worlds they inhabit—and should remind us to be cautious when taking any movement’s self-presentation at face value.
While these three studies provide essential insight into the genealogy, diversity, and lived expression of Salafism, they also pose deeper questions about the tradition’s broader significance. Perhaps it is more productive that we consider Salafism’s role as both a product and a catalyst of modern transformations in Islamic thought, rather than treating Salafism as a fringe strain within Sunni Islam.
While these three studies provide essential insight into the genealogy, diversity, and lived expression of Salafism, they also pose deeper questions about the tradition’s broader significance. Perhaps it is more productive that we consider Salafism’s role as both a product and a catalyst of modern transformations in Islamic thought, rather than treating Salafism as a fringe strain within Sunni Islam. What if Salafism is not merely one among many Islamic movements, but a mirror reflecting the structural, epistemic, and sociopolitical shifts that have reshaped the entire Sunni tradition? If we move from textual analysis and historical accounts to a more synthetic reflection, we can see that boundaries between Salafi and mainstream Sunni thought may not be as fixed as we imagine. Indeed, an examination of Salafism’s origins, rise, and contemporary evolution can also be used to illuminate how the entire Muslim scholarly tradition has changed over the last century. Our next question, then, is not simply what Salafism is, but what it has done to authority, authenticity and to how Muslims conceive the mainstream tradition to be.
The Salafi Within: Echoes Across the Tradition
Mainstream Islamic tradition today is deeply influenced by the same forces that gave rise to Salafism. Many of the distinctions that once sharply separated Salafism from the broader Sunni tradition are no longer so evident. It is arguable that mainstream Islam has been Salafised, not through wholesale adoption of Salafi doctrine, but in subtler ways. Its epistemic and methodological sensibilities have quietly permeated the tradition. Even as Salafism appears embattled, it has subtly reshaped the intellectual terrain; perhaps losing many battles, but quietly winning the war.
The old dichotomy between ‘traditionalist’ and ‘Salafi’ is breaking down. Neo-traditionalists increasingly emphasize scripturalism, revisit jurisprudence through fresh ijtihād, and treat madhhabs as flexible frameworks rather than rigid codes. Many Sufi figures now justify practices explicitly through Qur’an and Sunnah rather than esoteric cosmologies. What once seemed contradictory—the label “neo-traditionalist Salafi”—now describes much of today’s Islamic mainstream.
We are not merely witnessing a Salafi movement, but a deeper Salafisation of the tradition itself, a trend that is reflected in how Muslims across the spectrum increasingly engage religious texts, authority, and practice through Salafi-inflected lenses. This makes it crucial to distinguish between Salafism, a defined movement with identifiable scholars, institutions, and doctrines; and Salafisation, a broader intellectual tendency shaped by shared historical conditions.
‘Salafisation’ as a Cultural Process
Does modernity have a role to play in this? Certainly, but modernity should not be seen as an external force acting upon Islam—it is a shared condition shaping all currents within it. Rather than viewing Salafisation as a betrayal of tradition, we should see it as a reflection of how an Islamic discourse responds to the structural transformations of modernity. Urbanization, mass literacy, the growth of individualism in social and religious identity, the weakening of scholarly monopolies, the rise in the printing and dissemination of religious texts, and the onset of digital platforms have all undermined the traditional interpretive hierarchies that once defined religious authority. These profound social transformations have reshaped how Muslims engage with their faith, enabling more direct and diverse modes of scriptural engagement. Salafism’s resonance across the Muslim world lies in how it addressed these shifts, offering a framework for religious authenticity amidst intellectual upheaval.[9]
A century ago, Egypt was mostly rural and illiterate; today, it is urban, educated, and media-saturated. Such societal shifts inevitably reshape how Muslims understand themselves in relation to tradition. Similarly, the postcolonial expansion of schooling dismantled the monopoly of literacy long held by religious elites. Laypeople could now access texts directly, eroding traditional patterns of scholarly deference. Salafi discourse, with its focus on direct engagement with scripture and critique of inherited authority, resonated powerfully with this new religious subject.
The mistake is to imagine that mainstream tradition remains untouched by modernity’s forces. If Salafism is shaped by modernity, as critics are quick to note, then why would mainstream tradition be exempt from these same influences? Both emerged on shared terrain: shaped by colonial disruption, mass education, and global connectivity. What we are witnessing then is not just the spread of Salafi doctrine, but a broader transformation in how Muslims relate to their tradition—a quiet, bottom-up reconfiguration of Islamic reasoning itself.
Authority and Critique: The Case for Integration in Islamic Scholarship
Many critiques associated with Salafism—opposition to innovation, skepticism toward Sufi excesses, calls for renewed ijtihād—are not uniquely Salafi. Rather, they echo classical debates that long predate the 18th- and 19th-century reformers. The deeper issue lies not in raising such critiques, but in the late post-classical tradition’s failure to meaningfully integrate them into a broader project of renewal.
This failure is reinforced by how we read our own history, often through assumptions inherited from modern reformists. In this light, the Salafisation of mainstream Islam is not merely a spread of ideas, but a symptom of deeper, unresolved tensions within the tradition. As polemics recede, it becomes clear these critiques had merit. What is needed now is not their rejection, but their careful reintegration—within ethical, spiritual, and juristic frameworks that sustain tradition rather than fragment it.
Salafism compelled the wider tradition to confront its complacencies. Its “victory,” if it can be called that, lies less in ideological dominance than in articulating questions left unanswered by the late post-classical tradition. In truth, today’s mainstream tradition bears little resemblance to what preceded it. Indeed, the resurgence of neo-traditionalism is not a rejection of Salafism, but a quiet, often unspoken, Salafisation of the classical tradition itself.
This process reveals a subtle yet crucial truth: over the past century, Salafi ideas have quietly woven themselves into mainstream Islamic thought, shaping how Muslims think, teach, and practice—even among those who claim to reject them. Salafi influence is less about institutional control and more about normalizing particular modes of thinking—prioritizing scripture, challenging inherited authority, and emphasizing direct textual engagement. Today, neo-traditional scholars increasingly emphasize scripturalism, treat madhhabs as flexible resources rather than rigid sects, and critique certain Sufi practices, all of which are hallmarks of early reformist thought. In doing so, they often adopt epistemic assumptions shaped by Salafi methodology, even if not explicitly acknowledged. In this sense, Salafism’s “triumph” lies not in institutional or doctrinal dominance but in its profound and lasting transformation of how Muslims across the spectrum think about their religion.
Salafism compelled the wider tradition to confront its complacencies. Its “victory,” if it can be called that, lies less in ideological dominance than in articulating questions left unanswered by the late post-classical tradition. In truth, today’s mainstream tradition bears little resemblance to what preceded it. Indeed, the resurgence of neo-traditionalism is not a rejection of Salafism, but a quiet, often unspoken, Salafisation of the classical tradition itself.
To recognize this transformation requires intellectual honesty from the wider Sunni community. Instead of casting Salafism as a polemical “other,” Muslim scholarship must reckon with the shared conditions that produced both Salafi and traditionalist responses. The real question is no longer whether Islam has been Salafised—but whether we have the courage to acknowledge it.
Doing so invites us into more constructive possibilities: how might we incorporate reformist critiques—both their insights and their excesses—into a revitalised understanding of tradition? How do we distinguish what must be renewed from what must be retained? To answer these questions, we must bridge historiographies that have long run parallel, and move beyond narrow binaries that obscure broader transformations. Only through honest acknowledgment can Muslim intellectual traditions move beyond entrenched divides, recover the richness of their shared heritage, and forge a renewed trajectory for Islamic thought.
Faheem A. Hussain is an independent researcher. He has a BA (Hons.) in Arabic and Islamic studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, a PGCE in Religious Studies from Roehampton University, and an MA in philosophy from Heythrop College, University of London. His writings can be found at Substack [https://faheemahussain.substack.com/] and occasionally on Twitter/X @FaheemAMHussain.
[1] I am deeply indebted to Rasheed Gonzales, Tahmid Ahmed, Ahmed Jeddo, Shaykh Salman Nasir, and Shaykh Tariq al-Tamimi for reading sections and earlier drafts of this text, and for their thoughtful feedback and generous insights. I have also benefited greatly from extended conversations with Ahmed, Tahmid, and Yusuf Lenfest, whose patient engagement with my views has been invaluable—though they bear no responsibility for any errors that remain. All opinions expressed, and any mistakes, are entirely my own. I am also grateful to the Maydan team for their editorial assistance, which I appreciated deeply.
[2] See Wiktorowicz, Quintan. (2006). Anatomy of the Salafi Movement. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 29(3), 207–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/10576100500497004
[3] It is increasingly difficult to categorise the Saudi scholar Hātim al-ʿAwnī as a Salafi, given his published and unpublished works that depart from key Salafi positions—particularly on tawḥīd and shirk, the definition of bidʿah, and theological views on the ṣifāt (divine attributes). While it may have made sense a decade or so ago to describe him as a reformist or dissident voice within Salafism, such a characterisation today strains the definitional boundaries of the term. Few Salafis, it seems, would recognise him as one of their own. I am grateful to Shaykh Salman Nasir for this insight.
Some would argue a more accurate label may be “post-Salafi” as Christopher Pooya Razavian argues in his chapter, “Post-Salafism: Salman al-Ouda and Hatim al-Awni,” in Modern Islamic Authority and Social Change, Vol. 1, edited by Masooda Bano. For further engagement with the concept of post-Salafism, see Alexander Thurston’s article, “An Emerging Post-Salafi Current in West Africa and Beyond” (Maydan, 2021), as well as Theo Blanc and Olivier Roy’s “Post-Salafism: From Global to Local Salafism.
In any case, there is a range of names that could be offered when exploring Salafi thinkers who hold eclectic positions on key issues. Among them are Shaykh ʿAbdullāh ibn Zayd Āl Maḥmūd (d. 1997) of Qatar, the Saudi Shaykh `Abdullah ibn Mani, and the Iraqi jurist Shaykh ʿAbdullāh al-Juday’, currently based in the UK. I am grateful to Shaykh Tariq al-Tamimi for this insight and references.
[4] Of course, the popularisation of MIAW’s message may owe even more to other factors—particularly scepticism toward mysticism and supernatural beliefs in the Muslim world that arose under the influence of Western cultural and political domination. I am grateful to Shaykh Salman Nasir for this insight.
[5] Contrary to David Commins’s argument in The Wahhabi Mission and the Saudi State.
[6] A classic example of a Western academic work that glosses over Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s more extreme positions is Natana J. DeLong-Bas’s Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, published—surprisingly—by Oxford University Press. For a scathing critique of its historical methodology, see Stony Brook University Professor Mohammed Ballandus’s review of Wahhabi Islam. A more nuanced position is taken in David Commins’s otherwise excellent The Wahhabi Mission and the Saudi State.³ Commins argues that movements like al-Qaeda and the Sahwa cannot be directly traced to Wahhabi doctrine, suggesting instead that figures like Sayyid Qutb had a more decisive influence. Yet this framing implicitly assumes that the official Wahhabi establishment holds a privileged and authoritative reading of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s writings—while simultaneously downplaying the ways in which those very writings may lend themselves to more radical interpretations. This assumption sits uneasily with Commins’s own analysis of MIAW’s texts and actions, which acknowledges elements of takfīrism. In privileging the doctrinal stance of the Saudi religious establishment, he appears to downplay the internal tensions and ambiguities within the Wahhabi tradition itself. The obvious rejoinder, of course, is that the modern Wahhabi establishment has either misunderstood or politically domesticated the founder’s intent—motivated by its investment in the status quo and alliance with the Saudi state. It is no surprise, then, that such official positions hold little persuasive power for the very extremists they seek to repudiate. Notably, the criticisms these radicals level against the Wahhabi establishment echo the very critiques Wahhabis often direct at mainstream Islam—on issues of doctrine, jurisprudence, and mysticism—in the name of returning to the supposed purity of early Islam. That said, it is important to acknowledge that one can still claim to be a true heir of the 18th-century scholar Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, while simultaneously drawing significant influence, perhaps even more so, from the 20th-century thinker Sayyid Quṭb.
[7] For a representative understanding of how Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb is interpreted within the contemporary Wahhābī tradition, consider the case of Shaykh Ibn ʿUthaymīn (d. 2001). In his commentary on Kashf al-Shubuhāt, he argues that Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb affirmed the validity of ʿudhr bi’l-jahl (excuse based on ignorance). Yet in what can only be described as exegetical gymnastics, he devotes a ten- or eleven-page footnote (depending on the edition) to defending this claim—while commenting on a passage in which Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb explicitly denies ʿudhr bi’l-jahl. (I am grateful to Rasheed Gonzales for drawing my attention to this.) Perhaps more surprising is the position of the renowned Sufi scholar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlawī al-Mālikī (d. 2004), who also adopts a relatively lenient view of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. In his work Mafāhīm Yajibu an Tuṣaḥḥaḥ (various editions; English trans. Notions That Must Be Corrected by Abdul Aziz Suraqah), al-Mālikī defends Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb against the charge of indiscriminate takfīr. One can speculate on the motivations behind such leniency: a concern for the consequences of openly acknowledging the takfīrī implications of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s legacy; a pragmatic alignment with the now-domesticated Wahhābī establishment; a desire to maintain favour with the political status quo; or perhaps even a lack of familiarity with the primary sources. Whatever the reason, any defence of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb must ultimately be measured against the historical record if it is to be considered intellectually credible.
[8] I owe this point to Sh. Tariq al-Tamimi.
[9] This paragraph has particularly benefitted from conversations with Sh. Tariq al-Tamimi.