Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea by Shiraz Maher (review)

For all the interest in Salafism, and Salafi-jihadism, during the past three decades, it is surprising how difficult definitions have proved to be. Starting with William Shepard’s ground-breaking “What Is ‘Islamic Fundamentalism’?”¹ through the present, there is a striking lack of consensus among scholars of Islam, those who study terrorism, and the various security and intelligence analysts in Europe, Great Britain and the United States (as well as other countries) as to terminology, definitions, how to explain exceptions to the rule, and above all for teachers and public intellectuals trying to explain these nuances to the public.

This problem is the one that Shiraz Maher has attempted to tackle in Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea. To his credit, Maher stays close to the sources and presents his readers with a methodological basis for analysis. For the most part, he does not go over the operations associated with Salafi-jihadis, but attempts to define their ideology in a coherent fashion.

Problems of Salafi-jihadi definition are not merely generated differences among the various disciplines studying Salafi-jihadism nor the cultural differences between the way, let’s say, French or American scholars define the term (or avoid using it) but are inherent inside the movement of Salafi-jihadism. One cannot understand this movement without understanding its numerous theological and legal pronouncements, and the frequent disagreements between the major actors. Because, for the most part, outside observers do not want to involve themselves in what appears occasionally to be petty disagreement or personality-driven conflict framed as ideology, it is fairly easy to see the reasons not many scholars have written on this subject.

Maher divides Salafi-jihadism into five basic components: jihad (struggle, sacred warfare), takfir (the ability or willingness to declare apparent Muslims to be non-Muslims), al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ (loyalty and disassociation on the basis of Islam), tawhid (the declaration of the oneness of God), and hakimiyya (the necessity to implement God’s rule). In following a five-part division Maher is continuing a long theological tradition, embraced by both Mu‘tazilites and Calvinists, of explaining core beliefs using five points.

That is not to say that his division is not a felicitous one; indeed, he gives cogent reasons for his choices (pp. 13–27). Each of his five components are broken into two sections: the first one deals with the topic from a historical-developmental point of view, and the second one deals with its ramifications and development within contemporary Salafi-jihadism.

Maher’s first component of jihad is probably the least problematic, and the most discussed of all his five components. In his discussion he mainly focuses upon jihad as it touches upon doctrinal issues, such as the laws of retribution and of human shields. He does quite a good job detailing the shifting Salafi-jihadi discussion of human shields (pp. 61ff.), and how this concept has come to be key at various periods for justification of problematic operations.

Fewer scholars have covered the issue of takfir, let alone al-wala’ wa-l-bara’, which might seem to an outsider to have little relevance to jihadi operations. Because both of these concepts are boundary-defining ones, and because traditionally in Islam the penalty for apostasy was death, they are in fact key, and perhaps should have been covered prior to the discussion on jihad. Whereas with jihad one can point to a wide range of Muslim scholars, non-Salafi as well as Salafi, who discuss the issue, until the very recent past takfir and wala’ wa-l-bara’ have been almost exclusively the preserve of Salafis.

Essentially both of these latter concepts are attempts to answer the questions of what is the irreducible core of Islam — takfir answering it from a negative perspective, while al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ answers it from a positive perspective. Maher’s work here would have been enriched with reference to a few more contemporary non-Salafi...