Categorizing Salafism with and without Wiktorowicz : grounded reflections from Tunisia

Abstract

Since Wiktorowicz’s landmark article in 2006, students of Salafism have been critical users of his tripartite typology ('purists', 'politicos', and 'Jihadis'). Most efforts have been directed towards refining the typology according to the specificities of certain contexts or actors, especially after the Arab revolutions, but none contested its foundational paradigm. Based on fieldwork in Tunisia and a critical review of the academic literature, this article endeavors both to refine Wiktorowicz’s and Wiktorowicz-inspired typologies in the post-Arab revolutions era and to challenge their foundational paradigm through a discussion of the tension between ideology-oriented and behavior-oriented typologies. Criticisms include the erroneous equation of quietism with apoliticism, the restriction of jihad to Jihadis, the lack of distinction between jihad as a doctrinal tenet and as violent action, the diverse forms of political activism, the fluidity of categories and the birth of hybrid categories after the Arab revolutions, and the need for spatio-temporal (re-)contextualization and inductivism as well as for decentering the typology and genealogy of Salafism from (Saudi) Wahhabism. As a response to these limitations, the article proposes to distinguish between ideological attitudes and specialization into a field of action in a new typology of Salafism that is replicable beyond the Tunisian case.