The emotional pathways of recruitment to Islamist movements, and the role of affective ties in sustaining movement networks remain understudied relative to the service and preaching roles of these networks, and the material and spiritual benefits they offer individuals (Vannetzel 2016, Brooke 2019). Yet affective mobilization, as an outreach strategy, and as the basis of individual and community remaking, is an acknowledged part of Islamist mobilization from Pakistan to Egypt to Morocco, and socioemotional support is a key function of Islamist organizational work. This paper uses in-depth interviews with thirteen members of the Moroccan Adl wa Ihsan movement, and interviews and educational materials on recruitment from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to explore how they frame the affective experience of movement adherence and activism as a distinctive motivating factor and a strategy for achieving movement goals. I focus on how members frame the emotional benefits of the movement as key to their loyalty and belief in its mission, and as an alternative to uncaring mainstream society. I consider how members center positive interpersonal relationships as a religious duty, necessary for their own ethical cultivation, and affective bonds as key to building a better relationship with God and a just, Islamic society on a prophetic model. I also ask how movements see their role in offering sites in which to cultivate and model emotional and social solidarities that members can aim to replicate in wider social relations. Rather than focus on moral shock and frustration as key mobilizing emotions, I emphasize how movements cultivate positive emotions in members to build their sense of agency and activist identities, drawing on a literature that emphasizes the role of emotions in framing and making sense of mobilization, without treating emotions as either passive resources or independently causal (Goodwin, Jasper and Polletta 2001; Bishara 2015; Blom and Jaoul 2008). Following Blom’s analysis of emotional mobilization among Pakistani Islamists (2017), I ask how members see their moral obligation toward others in their new emotional communities, and consider how these obligations shaped their understandings of citizenship. I conclude by analyzing how these cases help build theory on the emotional microfoundations of mobilization (cf. Pearlman 2013) and movement resilience, and expand our understanding of how Islamists understand their role in providing righteous alternatives to the failures of modern society.

The paper will examine the life and thought of Muh?ammad Sur?r Zayn al-??bid?n, the Syrian ideologue and founder of an Islamist trend. In the highly politicalized Saudi Islamist scene of the early 1970s, Sur?r came up with a unique synthesis, an amalgam of the political consciousness of the Muslim Brotherhood in seeking political reform and the implementation of an Islamic order and the rigorous religious thought of Wahh?b?s. Under the influence of Sur?r's ideas, a new group, al-Sur?riyya the main group within the ?a?wa movement, appeared which had a significant impact on Saudi Islamic activism. In nature, the Salafi and Wahh?b? movements were largely apolitical and purist and focused more especially on scholarly and religious issues. As a former member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Sur?r brought a h?arak? (politicalized) orientation to the quietest Saudi context which became a phenomenon that needs to examine. Sur?r positioned himself and his followers as free centrist Salafis and distinguished himself from two types of Salafis who he called the “?izb al-Ghul?t” (radicals) and the “?izb al-Wul?t” (loyalists). On one hand, Sur?r rejected the violent approach of the radicals in pursuing their goals, but he also condemned the loyalists who called for total obedience for the rulers. The Gulf crisis and the first protests against the Saudi government in the 1990s reignited the old discussion about the validation of the Salafis to participate in politics. The debate between Sur?r, who advocated non-violent political activism, and “?izb al-Wul?t,” who adopted a quietist posture, sheds light on the ongoing discussion about the question of political engagement among Salafis. This paper is based mainly on the primary sources: Sur?r's own corpus of political and religious writings, journalistic work, and memoirs and a series of seven recorded television interviews with Sur?r as well as writings of other Salafis, especially his opponents.

Salafi ideals are often blamed for providing the foundations for anti-Shia narratives in Muslim societies. These ideals are propagated by Salafi ‘ulama, who operate as local and transnational actors preaching against Shia ‘deviance’. This paper analyses the transnational networks of Salafi ‘ulama, encompassing Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It examines how these ‘ulama foster common rhetoric and shared theological values against the Shia ‘other’. These ‘ulama engage in activities that are transnational in nature through Salafi satellite television channels, social media outlets and Salafi websites, promoting and sharing their fatwas, publications and sermons about the Shia sect. They are also active in organising global conferences for Salafi ‘ulama. This paper evaluates the impacts of local and regional circumstances on the transnational interactions of Salafi ‘ulama when dealing with the Shia sect. It finds that local and regional circumstances influence the intensity and frequency of the anti-Shi‘a rhetoric among the ‘ulama. Despite the transnational nature of interactions between Salafi ‘ulama in Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the ‘ulama respond to local issues when dealing with the Shi‘a. At times the ‘ulama have to moderate their rhetoric when pressured by state authorities. The paper also finds that although Salafi ‘ulama are divided along quietist (apolitical) and haraki (activist) lines in existing literature on Salafism, the categorisation reflects only their relations with the state and their views about Islam’s role in political affairs. In the context of Sunni-Shia relations, however, the ‘ulama are better categorised as traditionalist and progressive, reflecting the fact that some Salafi ‘ulama are more accommodating towards the Shi‘a, and Shi‘ism, than others. The core argument of the paper is that the ‘Shi‘a question’ fosters transnational networks of Salafi ‘ulama due to common doctrinal interpretations of Shi‘ism. However, sectarian questions also disturb these networks as ‘ulama who are of similar convictions concerning engagement with the state differ on their approaches to Shi’ism. The paper’s underlying analysis is how these networks are fostered or destabilised by these interactions, resulting in contestations and negotiations over Salafi religious and political identities.

When Ben Ali cracked down on the Islamist movement in the 1990s, many Ennahdha members and leaders went into exile, primarily to European countries. Some argue that this experience drove the organization to adopt a more pro-democratic stance, and to learn the value of compromise and collaboration. In the case of Egypt, on the other hand, many Ikhwanis suggest that the wave of emigration to the Gulf in the 1960s and 1970s also led to a new ethos of activism, albeit one centered around much more conservative social values. While some scholars have proposed that at the individual level, experience in a secular democracy can lead to ideological moderation via the mechanisms of socialization, inter-group contact and political learning, such an argument can lend itself to Orientalist tropes, while also overlooking the fact that exile experiences are far from uniform. This begs the question: How does exile impact organizational dynamics, and does exile in democratic versus non-democratic countries effect the trajectory of an Islamist organization? The growing literature on migration and Islamist politics has focused either on the impact of exile on the grassroots versus the leadership of Islamist groups (Wolfe 2017), on ideological changes at the individual level (Grewal forthcoming), or on diasporic mobilization and political participation more broadly (Aboussi 2018). In contrast, this paper draws on contentious politics and organizational theory to focus on how the nature of immigration policies and the political opportunity structures in different countries impact organizational dynamics and ideological changes in Islamist organization. The empirical discussion investigates how the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Ennahdha reconstituted the organization in exile in the 1960s/1970s and 1990s/2000s respectively. The analysis draws on a variety of primary and secondary sources, including interviews conducted by the author with Ennahdha and Muslim Brotherhood members. The article suggests that at the organizational level, the impact of exile has less to do with the level of democracy and secularism of the destination country, and more to do with the ability of the organization to mobilize, the type of inclusion in civil society and political life that it experiences, and the cohesion or fragmentation of the leadership. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications for Western countries, and a reflection on what trajectory we can expect for the Muslim Brotherhood in the near future, based on its current developments in exile.

In this paper I explore the circulation of a martyrdom contract between the militant group Al-Qaida in Iraq and Khalaf Ahmad Nawfal-al-Rashdan, known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Ahmad. Through it I want to consider first, the transformations of value and of form that made this contract possible; and second, the conceptual and epistemological exchanges and circulations that made these transformations possible. One of the many notable aspects of the document is that it formalizes the martyrdom of Abu Ahmad as contractual labour, detailing the various rights and responsibilities between facilitator and suicide bomber. The document was one of many acquired by the U.S military in the 2006-7 “Surge” and sent back to the U.S for posterity. Now categorized and digitized in West Point Combatting Terrorism Center archive, the document stands variously as a spoil of war, a testament to contemporary American military adventurism, and a claim that documents may provide future American militarists critical intelligence to combat terror. The martyr, I am suggesting, like a commodity, has a ‘social life’ that goes beyond the moments and context—the ‘event’—of their death. With this in mind I ask more broadly how, like a commodity, the martyr in its multiplicity of manifestations, is regulated, transformed, and traded, and the ways in which that traveling, this exchange and transmutation of form, effects the institutions in which it is embedded. By doing so I hope to highlight the hybrid nature of militant groups’ cultural and institutional practices, while engaging with anthropological theories of value alongside critical ethnographic theories of sacrifice. In doing so I hope to demonstrate the interconnections between states, militant, and civil society groups’ commemorative, memorial, and archival practices and the hybrid forms of political and social authority that underpin them.