The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century by Henri Lauzière (review)

Many courses on the Islamic intellectual history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries feature the famous reformist thinkers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897) and Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905) as proponents of a movement called Salafism. This is not surprising: much of the literature on modernist Islamic thinking claims that both men founded or propagated a reformist movement they called Salafism that focussed on reverting to the supposed purity of “the pious predecessors” (al-salaf al-salih) — a term often used for the first generations of Muslims — in order to rebuild Islam, as it were, and make it compatible with the demands of the modern age. The book under review by Henri Lauzière, an assistant professor of history at Northwestern University, sets out to debunk this theory.

To the general public, the term “Salafism” has become associated with a trend in Sunni Islam whose adherents also lay claim to emulating “the pious predecessors,” but who do so for reasons of “purification,” not “modernization,” and whose lifestyles, Qur’anic exegesis, and general views are therefore often seen as strict and rigid. It is precisely the conceptual relationship between these two trends — “modernist Salafism” and “purist Salafism,” as Lauzière calls them — that forms the heart of this book. More specifically, Lauzière’s goal is “to trace the making of Salafism as a concept in both its modernist and its purist versions to explain how the latter supplanted the former” (p. 19). In his analysis, he shows convincingly that “modernist Salafism” did exist, but that a movement whose adherents labelled their trend “Salafism” did not come into existence until years after al-Afghani and ‘Abduh had died.

Lauzière’s book holds that until well into the 20^th century, the term “Salafi” was only used to refer to certain theological views espoused by men such as Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328). The author acknowledges that early 20^th-century Islamic modernist reformers may have been adherents to this Salafi creed, but he claims that this does not mean that they constituted a movement they called Salafism. Moreover, Lauzière writes that the trend he refers to as “purist Salafism” as it is seen by its adherents today — the meticulous emulation of “the pious predecessors” in every sphere of life — is very much a 20^th-century construct, even if it encompasses very old theological ideas. In his book, the author shows that both “modernist Salafism” and its “purist” equivalent were constructed alongside each other and that Salafism increasingly took on a “purist” character as it developed throughout the twentieth century. This development was strongly affected by the desire on the part of some Salafi thinkers, faced with Western colonialism, to engage in “strengthening and uniting Muslims of different regions and cultural backgrounds under a common standard of Islamic purity” (p. 24).

Salafis’ balancing act between an increasing (but potentially divisive) tendency towards doctrinal purity on the one hand and the wish to remain united in the confrontation with the West on the other proved difficult, but not impossible. Lauzière notes that Salafis clearly toned down their desire for purity in certain areas, taking a more ecumenical approach towards other Muslims in order not to create division while under foreign colonial rule. This way, nationalism and Salafism went hand in hand, at least to a certain extent. With the demise of colonialism, however, the need for unity in the confrontation of a shared Western enemy was lost, thereby creating space for Salafis to emphasize their “purist” tendencies. Lauzière illustrates this development towards an increasingly “purist” interpretation of Salafism during the second half of the 20^th century by analysing the life of the Moroccan Salafi scholar Muhammad Taqi al-Din al-Hilali (1894–1987).

This publication is a major contribution to our knowledge of the concept of Salafism, and Lauzière should be commended for critically and meticulously focussing on this term...