Salafism is usually associated with violence, but the vast majority of Salafis belong to the so-called apolitical current that has been promoted in Saudi Arabia and has been used against its opponents as represented by Islamism, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, and political Salafis, the Saudi Sahwa movement. One group, led by Rabi‘ al-Madkhali (b. 1931), was particularly focal in the campaign against political Islam. For this he was eventually given the honorific title of “Carrier of the banner of the Critique (jarh) and Praise (ta‘dil) of the Era” by his teachers Bin Baz, Salih Fawzan al-Fawzan, and Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani. The campaign had both an ideological and an institutional side. The first consisted of the publication of a whole series of books and pamphlets denouncing the opponents as deviants, while the latter was directed at purging the Islamic universities in Riyad, Medina and Mecca of members of the Brotherhood and turning them into apolitical Salafi bulwarks. Many of the students of these universities were foreign Muslims, and therefore the influence of the Madkhali current to Europe especially to France, Great Britain, and to a lesser extent the Netherlands. In many ways, the campaign of Rabi‘ al-Madkhali can be seen as the Saudi version of the war on terrorism. It condemned extremism (ghuluw), partyism (hizbiyya) and activism (haraka). But aside from not having the right creed (‘aqida) and method or program (manhaj), the opponents were accused of not having the right conservative morals and attitudes (akhlaq). Although al-Madkhali’s current is called “apolitical”, it is in fact deeply ambiguous: on the one hand it rejects politics in the sense that one is in general discouraged from asking “unnecessary” questions; on the other hand it is extremely political by holding the view that the correct creed means that one supports the present rulers (wali al-amr) in the Arab world---especially KSA---and one should refrain from instigating dissension (fitna). This paper will trace the ideological discourse and institutional build-up of the Madkhali school since the 1980s until the present in its local setting in KSA as well as in its transnational dimension in Europe. It will try to answer the question why the movement was so successful in gaining followers but failed in stemming violent Jihadi-Salafism. The paper is based on in depth research of the written sources and field work in Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands.

Transnational Islamic communities authorize different forms of Islam while negotiating between the Islamic tradition and the liberal and secular norms of the European public sphere. This article compares how the production of religious authority within two Turkish Islamic communities—Gülen and Süleymanl? —shape two distinct types of Islam—civil and traditionalist. Suleymanli is a branch of Naqshibandiyya Sufi order and Gülen community has emerged as a revivalist faith-based movement. Islamic community (cemaat in Turkish) refers to an informal network based on shared interpersonal experience in socio-religious activism and discourse, which claims to represent “true Islam” through its activities and institutions. Each Islamic community is constituted in periodic face-to-face gatherings such as reading circles and rituals in which religious knowledge is produced and disseminated. The interaction of a religious corpus of assertions, their media of representation, and forms of social organization during these gatherings authorizes multiple forms of Islam based on different “criteria of Islamic validity and priority”. Religious authority involves the individuals, positions, actions, and sources that represent collective identity and preserves group cohesion by controlling and disciplining individuals through their “criteria of validity and priority” who become members or dropouts—that is through boundary making. The field of activism each organization concentrates such politics, education, or religious instruction defines group distinction and promotes the type of knowledge that religious authority embodies and distributes through boundary making. The comparison of the approaches of these two communities to Islamic activism and practice in Europe suggests that Islam is neither a “seamless essence” nor endlessly malleable, but a negotiation between Islamic tradition and the particular circumstances of Muslims. The emergence of “European” adaptations of the Islamic tradition requires an analysis of how Islam is authorized in Europe rather than simply what “European Islam” is or who speaks on behalf of it, individually or communally.

The Moroccan Islamic movement al-Adl wa-l-Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality), founded in 1985 by Shaykh Abdessalam Yassine, is in many ways unique in the broader spectrum of Islamism. In its core teachings, it combines Sufi practices with a strong political commitment in Morocco and the absolute rejection of the Moroccan monarch as commander of the faithful. This paper examines transformations and continuities inside this movement in the context of migration to Spain. So far, the few studies on groups affiliated with al-Adl wa-l-Ihsan in Europe have concentrated on their relation to Moroccan politics. While there are good reasons for this focus, it is at least equally important to consider how activists from al-Adl wa-l-Ihsan position themselves self-consciously as Muslims in Spanish society and how they interact with other Muslim groups in the national space. The beginning of the presence of AI-Adl wal-Ihsan in Spain in 2000 coincides with a period of important changes in Spain in terms of visibilization and organization of the Muslim communities. Partly due to the increasing number of immigrants from Muslims countries (mainly from Morocco) and the higher degree of organization of Muslim communities, and partly because of the new visibility of Islam after 9/11 and the Madrid attacks in 2004, the modes of functioning of Spanish Muslim associations, new actors are emerging and there is an increased public pressure for Muslims to interact with public authorities and civil society. This paper examines recent developments in local Muslim associations set up by Moroccan immigrants linked to Al-Adl wa-l-Ihsan. Based on in-depth-interviews with these activists, the paper will explore how the movement’s commitment to Morocco and the umma interacts with the way they perceive and position themselves in the national context of Spain. Examining the discourse of the emerging leadership of this movement in Spain, I seek to understand how their political commitment and spiritual bond with the Moroccan guide incorporate and rework elements from the dominant discourse concerning the necessary adaptation of Islam to Spain. The focus will be on how the concept of suhba allows them maintaining their ties with Sheykh Yassin while at the same time developing different strategies for political and social participation in Spain that move them away from the Moroccan Jama’a.

TERRITORIALIZATION OF ISLAM AS A RESPONSE TO EXCLUSION Oliver Roy highlights the many new movements arising from Muslim minority communities in the West (what he calls the “deterritorialization” of Islam). He argues that second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants in the West do not identify with any particular nation-state, so they have no interest in nationalist or statist Islamic movements. Instead, they seek to create a global community of believers, a global umma. To create such a global community, local and historical cultural differences and variations must be discarded in favor of a “universal” concept of Islam. Islam is radicalized due to this deterritorialization. This paper, based on the ethnographic research conducted on the Turkish Islamist movement Milli Gorus in Germany and the Netherlands, challenges Roy’s argument and argues that neither deterritorialization nor territorialization is automatic. These processes are closely linked to the rules, laws, and regulations of the host country within which Islamist immigrants operate. Deterritorialization might produce a moderate Islam while a territorialized Islam might become radical. Although they embrace ummah as a second pillar of their identity, Milli Gorus members in Germany mostly identify themselves with Turkey, creating a Turkish Islam. On the other hand, Milli Gorus in the Netherlands mostly identify themselves with the ummah while making little refence to Turkey as a marker of their identity. This difference is explained by the exclusivist nature of German rules, laws and regulations in regards to immigration and Islam and the tolerant approach adopted by the Netherlands towards immigrants in general, Muslim immigrants in particular. In the face of exclusion socially, politically and economically, Milli Gorus in Germany turns to Turkey as the main point of reference in their identity construction, becoming more isolated and alienated from the democratic system, while Milli Gorus in the Netherlands adopts a less nationalistic and more universal approach to Islam in the face of acceptance and tolerance by the host society, internalizing democratic processes.

A significant group of individuals, groups or institutions in Western Europe are today described as belonging to the “Muslim Brothers” or being “close” to them. An examination of these actors, their networks, activities and discourses rapidly makes apparent that, while they share to a large degree the same lineage, their profiles have diversified over time and today often diverge considerably. Taking the case of the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF), created in 1983, this paper seeks to inquire into the analytical usefulness of the category “Muslim Brother” in the contemporary context of France. The UOIF emerged out of a long process of divisions and mergers between Muslim associations in the French immigrant student milieus of the 1970s and 1980s. Activists from the Tunisian Harakat al-ittijah al-islami (later Harakat al-Nahda) and from the Lebanese Al-Jama’at al-Islamiya were particularly influential at the time of the setup of the organization in the 1980s. Today Moroccan activists are very influential in the upper echelons of the Union’s leadership. Through their close relationship to Yusuf al-Qaradawi and their membership in the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe the UOIF is part of an Arabic-speaking transnational space which links Europe to the Middle East and North Africa. While this transnational network is often referred to in order to substantiate the characterization of the UOIF as ‘Ikhwani’, less attention is paid to studying how the discourses circulating inside this network and its various activities relate to the UOIF’s work inside France. In fact, in the course of the past two decades, the UOIF has become deeply embedded in the social space of the French Republic. Through the creation of a structure of affiliated groups and institutions, whose number is unequalled among French Islamic Federations, through its significant presence in youth milieus, and, last but not least, its close cooperation with State authorities as a representative of France’s mosque associations, the UOIF’s activities have become entwined in complex ways with French society and contribute to reconfigure it. Based on interviews with UOIF activists and the analysis of Islamic media, this paper will outline the complex (trans)national spatial configuration inside which the UOIF functions and examine the relevance, both as discursive and material ressource and as a source of internal and external problems, of the Muslim Brothers’ tradition for the work of the UOIF.