On Monday 15 October, the French Cultural Centre organised a seminar in which Bernard Rougier, specialist in the Middle East and Arab affairs and director of the Cairo-based Centre d##Études et de Documentation Économiques (CEDE)
On Monday 15 October, the French Cultural Centre organised a seminar in which Bernard Rougier, specialist in the Middle East and Arab affairs and director of the Cairo-based Centre d##Études et de Documentation Économiques (CEDE), spoke about Salafism.
Rougier said: “I met Salafis in Syria, France and in refugee camps in Lebanon. Most of our meetings were positive and my requests to meet them were rarely rejected.
Belonging to the early Muslims
“The word ‘Salafi’ has recently invaded media; we are told that Salafis are those whose reference is the heritage of the early Muslims, which is not true. Salafis are those who focus on Prophet Mohamed’s sunna; the way he lived and dealt, his behaviour and relations with others.
“However, being a Muslim is not enough to belong to the group, there is one thing a Muslim has to do to be part of the group and without it he can never be one of them. This is taking as a mainstay the Prophet’s hadith (a saying or an act or tacit approval or disapproval ascribed either validly or invalidly to Prophet Mohamed). There is a strong relation between the hadith and understanding a new perspective to Islam. Salafis adherence to hadith can explain to us who are they. Salafism is an attempt to search for self; it is a redefine to self. It can be said that it is a psychological phenomenon through which Salafis are trying to find appreciation to the self by belonging to the early Muslims”.
Mr Rougier explained that one of the strongest reasons behind the existence of Salafis in politics is their rejection of the Muslim Brothers. Muslim Brothers Group is a religious body based on a non-religious heirarchy and organisation. For MBs, before you take over a responsibility you have to show your qualifications. It is the opposite for Salafis, you can get big responsibility without being qualified or competent enough for it.
However, Mr Rougier said, Salafism cannot be a united movement because of the divisions spread among the Salafi communities since everyone believes that he is the closest to the Prophet.
Jihadi Salafism
Rougier explained that Salafism was founded by Mohamed Nasser Eddin al-Albani and is divided into two tides: Jihadi Salafism and preaching Salafism. Jihadi Salafism was founded by Abdallah Azzam of the Muslim Brothers. He struggled against Israel in Jordan so he gained military experience. He got a PhD from al-Azhar; he used to study in his military uniform and had Jordanian followers from all classes. He believed that after struggling in Jordan and Afghanistan he should go to Lebanon and the Philippines and to all countries all over the world to announce jihad; so he was considered the Che Guevara of Islam. Azzam traveled to Saudi Arabia where he met Ibn al-Baz the Mufti of Saudi Arabia who rejected his thoughts, however, Azzam announced Baz acceptance. Then Azzam went to Osama bin Laden who assisted him to found and fund al-Qaeda which greatly expanded due to the general conditions at that time of the cold war and the struggles in the Middle East. There was a sort of disagreement between the ideology of Bin-Laden and Azzam since Laden believed that Arab countries should send their vanguards to the Soviet whereas Azzam totally refused this idea.
Preaching Salafism
As for preaching Salafism; it is a mix between the ideologies of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafis. It first appeared in Saudi Arabia and in Alexandria. In the 1960s, many Muslim Brothers escaped from Egypt and Syria, and found refuge in Saudi Arabia. They later returned to Egypt during the Sadat years, managed to get into the Ministry of Education and thus controlled education, and an entire new generation was brought up according to their teachings. At that time, political Salafism appeared.
In Alexandria, preaching Salafism started at Alexandria University’s Faculty of Medicine by Yasser Burhami and Mohamed Ismail al-Muqadim who were members of the Muslim Brothers group but when they were dismissed from it they started a struggle in their own way.
Although Salafis do not believe in authority or parties, there is a new real experience in Egypt which is al-Nour Party. Here there are some questions that beg answers: Can Salafism become a social movement since it is one of the biggest challenges in Egypt? Does Abu-Ismail represent revolutionary Salafism or the opposition? Will the divisions in Salafism lead them to more versatility, and accordingly to success and survival?
WATANI International
20 October 2012