What is Salafism?

Understanding Salafism has acquired an urgent significance for modern scholarship. A methodological dilemma, fraught with political and religious implications, looms over the question of defining it.

by Ovamir Anjum

Understanding Salafism has acquired an urgent significance for modern scholarship, often for unfortunate reasons. Salafism has been marked as a dangerous form of Islam by the masters of the modern world, and scholars and academics often have little choice but to fall in line. Once, a newly minted FBI officer (who took me for an influentia…