Salafi jihadism, also known as Salafi-jihadism, jihadist Salafism and revolutionary Salafism, is a religiopolitical Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate through armed struggle. In a narrower sense, jihadism refers to the belief that armed struggle with political rivals is an efficient and theologically legitimate method of socio-political change. The Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts is "in their most literal, traditional sense",Kepel, Jihad, 2002, pp. 220-222 which adherents claim will bring about the return to "true Islam".
The term "jihadist salafists" was coined by French political scientist Gilles Kepel."Jihadist-Salafism" is introduced by Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2002) pp.219-222Deneoux, Guilain (June 2002). "The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political Islam". Middle East Policy. pp. 69–71." Kepel used it to refer to international volunteers of the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, who, after the Soviet withdrawal and loss of American-Saudi funding, sought new paths to engage in jihad.Kepel, Jihad, 2002, p.218-220 Isolated from their national and social class origins and seeking to "rationalize" their "existence and behavior", some Arab volunteers as well as local Islamists expanded the targets of their jihad to include the United States and other countries with Muslim causes around the world.
Jihadist and Salafist elements of the new "hybrid" ideology developed by international volunteers (Arab-Afghan mujahideen) had not been joined previously because mainstream Salafis, dubbed by some Western commentators as "good Salafis", had mostly adhered to political quietism and eschewed political activities and partisan allegiances. Jihad had been viewed as potentially divisive for the broader Muslim community and as a distraction from the studying and practicing of Islam. Prominent Quietist Salafi scholars have denounced doctrines of Salafi jihadism as Bid'ah ("innovation") and "heretical", strongly forbidding Muslims from participating or assisting in any armed underground activity against any government. Jihadist salafists often dismiss the quietist scholars as "'sheikist" traitors, portraying them as palace scholars worried about the patronage of "the oil sheiks of the Arabian peninsula" rather than pure Islam, and contend that they are not dividing the Muslim community because, in their view, the rulers of Muslim-majority countries and other self-proclaimed Muslims they attack are not actually part of the community, having deviated from Islam and become apostates or false Muslims.
Early ideologues of the movement were Arab Afghan veterans of the Afghan jihad, such as Abu Qatada al-Filistini, the naturalized Spanish Syrian Abu Musab, and Mustapha Kamel known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, among others. The jihadist ideology of Qutbism has been identified variously as the ideological foundation of the movement, a closely related Islamist ideology, or a variety of revolutionary Salafism. While Salafism had little presence in Europe during the 1980s, Salafi jihadists had by the mid-2000s acquired "a burgeoning presence in Europe, having attempted more than 30 terrorist attacks among E.U. countries since 2001". While many see the influence and activities of Salafi jihadists as in decline after 2000 (at least in the United States), others see the movement as growing in the wake of the Arab Spring, the breakdown of state control in Libya and Syria in 2014, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Definitions In the words of Madawi al Rasheed, Salafi jihadism is "a hybrid construction deeply rooted in the last three decades of the twentieth century that is desperate to anchor itself in an authentic Islamic tradition, yet reflecting serious borrowing from the discourse of Western modernity".
According to Madawi Al Rasheed, ideology of Jihadi-Salafism is a post-modern hybridity whose sources can be found in the past and present, in both the Muslim world and Western world. Thus, it is the outcome of cross-fertilisation of sources that are both transnational and local, resulting in a devastating ideology that re-invents the past to induce a "cataclysmic war between two binary oppositions". Contemporary Salafi-Jihadis are primarily products of modernity rather than an extension of traditional Muslim societies. Thus, Jihadis seek to create a mimicry of the West of which they want to be part of, but reject the other leading to violence. However, more than the ideology itself, it is the circumstances that explain the appeal of Jihadis which is the real cause of violence. The traditional Mujahideen of the previous eras, such as 'Omar al-Mukhtar, 'Abd al-Qadir, al-Jaza'iri and 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam were a different category of people, products of different social circumstances who sought to liberate occupied lands from foreign imperialist and colonial penetrations. Although they gained solidarity across the Islamic World, they were not transnational actors. Salafi-Jihadis on the other hand, die for an imagined globalised faith, shares Western modernity (despite its critique), and advocate a neo-liberal free-market rationale, in their quest for a global World Order. Thus Jihadi-Salafism has as much to do with the West as with Salafism or religion in general.
Another definition of Salafi jihadism, offered by Mohammed M. Hafez, is an "extreme form of Sunni Islamism that rejects democracy and Shia rule". Hafez distinguished them from apolitical and conservative Salafi scholars (such as Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani, Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen, Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, Wasiullah Abbas, Zubair Ali Zai, and Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh) but also from the sahwa movement associated with Salman al-Ouda or Safar Al-Hawali. According to Michael Horowitz, Salafi jihad is an ideology that identifies the "alleged source of the Muslims' conundrum" in the "persistent attacks and humiliation of Muslims on the part of an anti-Islamic alliance of what it terms 'Crusaders', 'Zionists', and 'apostates'." The concept was described by the American-Israeli scholar Martin Kramer as an academic term that "will inevitably be [simplified to] jihadism or the jihadist movement in popular usage."
Tenets According to political scientist Gilles Kepel, Salafist jihadism combined "respect for the sacred texts in their most literal form, ... with an absolute commitment to jihad, whose number-one target had to be America, perceived as the greatest enemy of the faith." 13th-century Hanbalite jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (1328 C.E/ 728 A.H), a maverick cleric known for his fierce anti-Mongol stances, is the most authoritative classical theologian in Salafi-jihadist discourse.
According to Mohammed M. Hafez, contemporary jihadi Salafism is characterized by "five features": immense emphasis on the concept of tawhid (unity of God); God's sovereignty (hakimiyyat Allah), which defines right and wrong, good and evil, and which supersedes human reasoning is applicable in all places on earth and at all times, and makes unnecessary and un-Islamic other ideologies such as liberalism or humanism; the rejection of all religious innovation (bid‘ah) in Islam; the permissibility and necessity of takfir (the declaring of a Muslim to be outside the creed, so that they may face execution); and on the centrality of jihad against infidel regimes.
Another researcher, Thomas Hegghammer, has outlined five objectives shared by jihadis: Changing the social and political organisation of the state (an example, being the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) which fought to overthrow the Algerian state and replace it with an Islamic state). Establishing sovereignty on a territory perceived as occupied or dominated by non-Muslims (an example being the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure) in Indian-administered Kashmir and the Caucasus Emirate in the Russian Federation). Defending the Muslim community (ummah) from external non-Muslim perceived threats, either the "near enemy" (al-adou al-qarib, this includes jihadists Arabs who travelled to Bosnia and Chechnya to defend local Muslims against non-Muslim armies) or the "far enemy" (al-adou al-baid, often affiliates of Al-Qaeda attacking the West). Correcting other Muslims' moral behaviour. (In Indonesia, vigilantes first used sticks and stones to attack those they considered "deviant" in behavior before moving on to guns and bombs.) Intimidating and marginalising other Muslim sects (an example being Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which has carried out violent attacks on Pakistani Shia for decades, and killings in Iraq).
Robin Wright notes the importance in Salafi jihadist groups of the formal process of taking an oath of allegiance (Bay'ah) to a leader. (This can be by individuals to an emir or by a local group to a transglobal group.) "marbling", i.e. pretending to cut ties to a less-than-popular global movement when "strategically or financially convenient". (An example is the cutting of ties to al-Qaeda by the Syrian group Al-Nusra Front with al-Qaeda's approval.)
Al Jazeera journalist Jamal Al Sharif describes Salafi jihadism as combining "the doctrinal content and approach of Salafism and organisational models from Muslim Brotherhood organisations. Their motto emerged as 'Salafism in doctrine, modernity in confrontation.
Differences from Quietist and Islamist Salafism Much of Salafi-Jihadist discourse borrows heavily from Sayyid Qutb's concept of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance), hakimiyya (Sovereignty of God) and takfir (excommunication). Prominent contemporary ideologues of Salafi jihadism, such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al Filistini, drew heavily from the works of Sayyid Qutb and adopted concepts of Al-Wala wal Bara from his writings. Maqdisi's interpretation of Al-Wala wal Bara marked a distinct shift from traditional Salafi theology by introducing Takfiri principles to it. Adopting a binary world-view, Maqdisi excommunicated contemporary governments in the Muslim World and their collaborators as apostates. Salafi Jihadists also reject democracy as it contradicts their interpretation of Hakimiyya. Salafi Islamists, while supporting revolutions to topple authoritarian regimes, permit the participation in democratic systems across the world to Islamize the political order through the existing structures. These revolutionary Islamist doctrines advocating violent overthrow of the existing political order, is seen as heretical by Quietist Salafis.
Salafi jihadists distinguish themselves from Quietist salafis whom they label "sheikist", so named because – the jihadists believe – that the "sheikists" had forsaken adoration of God for adoration of "the oil sheiks of the Arabian peninsula, with the Al Saud family at their head". Principal among the sheikist scholars was Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz – "the archetypal court ulema [ulama al-balat]". These allegedly "false" salafi "had to be striven against and eliminated", but even more infuriating was the Salafi Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Salafi jihadists considered excessively moderate and lacking in a stricter literalist interpretation of holy texts.
Quietist Salafi scholarship in turn, denounce Salafi jihadism as a heterodox ideology far-removed from Salafi orthodoxy. Quietist Salafi scholars such as Albani, Ibn Uthaymeen, Ibn Baz, Saleh Al-Fawzan, and Muqbil ibn Hadi condemned rebellion against the rulers as "the most corrupt of innovations", and forbade Muslims "to take it upon himself to execute a ruling" which is under the jurisdiction of the rulers. Salafi jihadists contend that they are not dividing the Muslim community because, in their view, the rulers of Muslim-majority countries and other self-proclaimed Muslims they attack have deviated from Islam and are actually apostates or false Muslims.