I am a Salafi – A Study of the Actual and Imagined Identities of Salafis pdf download

I am a Salafi – A Study of the Actual and Imagined Identities of Salafis by Mohammad Abu Rumman

I AM A SALAFI – A STUDY OF THE ACTUAL AND IMAGINED IDENTITIES OF SALAFIS

Book’s Foreword

While Salafism is by no means a novelty, Salafi movements have witnessed a strong surge over the past decades.

Traditionally averse to involvement in political affairs, since the so-called Arab Spring, several Salafi movements have developed political agendas and have become active in the political arena.

 Salafism has been receiving increased media attention with Salafi Jihadi groups recruiting from around the globe and fighting in Syria. Oftentimes, little attention is being paid to the fact that Salafi movements are neither static nor homogenous.

 Jihadi factions, for instance, are not representative of the whole movement, whose different components have undergone considerable transformation in recent years.

Few studies so far have analyzed the social and economic background, from which the members of Salafi groups have come, or the motives behind their involvement. This book hence presents a pioneering study of Salafism.

The author Dr. Mohammad Abu Rumman resorts to a narrative-based approach, building his analysis on numerous interviews with Salafis in Jordan to understand their motivation, their social, economic, and cultural context as well as their values, convictions, and aspirations

. Instead of studying the movement from the outside, Abu Rumman offers first-hand accounts of its members and presents his conclusions based on these personal encounters.

The author selected the majority of his interviewees from those committed to Salafism who are not in leadership positions but who constitute the base of the movement. Consequently, the book represents an important contribution to understanding the complexities of Salafism and its different trends.

To shed light on the various streams and trends and to promote an educated discourse on Islamist movements, the Amman office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) has created a line of work dedicated to Political Islam.

With the aim of providing information, which both satisfies academic standards while at the same time being accessible and understandable to a non-expert readership, we launched a publication series on Political Islam in 2007. Since then, FES Amman has published eight widely received books in this series. Furthermore, FES Amman regularly

brings together experts from throughout the region to discuss the developments, which the Arab world is currently witnessing with regard to Islamist parties and movements.

The German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is active in promoting democracy and social justice worldwide. With more than 90 offices around the globe, FES organizes activities on a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from the promotion of trade unions and labor rights to capacity development for civil society, to the furthering of human rights and many other issues.

The team of FES Amman wishes to express their heartfelt gratitude to the author of this book, Dr. Mohammad Abu Rumman, whose expertise and continuous work on Political Islam present an invaluable contribution to the discussion of this important topic.

We thank you, our readers, for your interest in the events and publications of FES Amman and hope that our book “Ana Salafi” will prove an insightful resource to you.

The Salafi Approach: The Sociology of Identity

The methodology that guided the scope and approach of this book stems from the influence of various sociologists and psycho-sociologists and is rooted in the study of cultural identities and concepts, and the study of social identities, which is derived from the disciplines of psychology and its theories of groups and communities, as well as anthropology.

Indeed, in examining Salafi identity, the discipline of the sociology of identity is the most appropriate because it examines Salafi identity, or more precisely, the Salafi quest for political, social, and cultural identity.

 Accordingly, it discusses how Salafis respond to identity questions such as: Who am I? Who is he?

Why have I become Salafi? How have I become Salafi? When did I commit myself to Salafism? What does it mean to be Salafi? How has my experience with Salafism evolved?

What is my vision of the self and the other? To which group do I belong? How do I prioritize my personal, intellectual, societal, cultural, and political affiliations and belonging? Does my commitment to Salafism define my social, behavioral, and political standards or vice versa?

Identity is derived from a set of factors at the individual and societal levels that grant human beings a sense of belonging and of collective fate. It is this feeling that guarantees both the continuity and the security of the group.

Once this feeling disappears, the group begins to dissolve. Undoubtedly, the perspective that the sociology of identity offers has helped elucidate the nature of the relationship between the individual and the community, or the Salafi society to which an individual belongs.

Explicit in the concept of the sociology of identity is the notion that identity is based on the subjective definitions that groups assign to themselves, their understanding of themselves, and their ties with other groups.

Additionally, it is founded in groups’ self-perceptions and their reasons for existence. In other words, identity is constructed from a longing for stability and a sense of uniqueness, by juxtaposing it against others. In fact, identity cannot be conceived of if the differences of those representing the other are not highlighted or contrasted with the self.

The distance between “self” and the “other” plays an essential role in self-awareness, in allowing the individual to determine the disparity or closeness of identities. As a consequence, the balance of identity depends on both the self and the other.⁹

In conducting this study, I rely on the several concepts and assumptions that help formulate the questions pertaining to identity.

The first concept is the perception of Salafism as a validation of identity and as a defense mechanism against globalization, the challenge of modernity and the pressures of the modern world. External values, cultures and behaviors that enter traditional societies can confront them with complex and confusing questions.

 In this vein, Salafism is subsumed in a “traditional model” of identity formation, which views the other as “strange.”

This is in contrast to models of identity that view the other as similar.

The image f the “other” as portrayed by Salafism is loaded with symbols and connotations, and the self-image is thus the benchmark against which others are measured.

In this regard, I capitalize on the contributions of Dariush Shayegan’s examination and interpretation of the controversies raised by modernity and dominant Western culture within local and traditional societies.

 In doing so, Shayegan identified religion-based identity as the ideological starting point of Islamic fundamentalist movements. In this context, Islamic identity is presented as the unifying factor or the common denominator of Muslim nations.