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“Looking at the life of the prophet and how he dealt with all these issues.” Self-positioning, demarcations and belongingness of German salafis from an emic perspective

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Abstract

This article explores self-ascriptions, processes of inclusion and exclusion, and senses of belonging in the everyday lives of German Muslims who orientate themselves towards the Salafiyya. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews taking place over a year and a half, we draw on two case studies to show how demarcation lines between ‘us’ and ‘others’ can be established within the diverse Salafi communities and Salafi self-positioning in non-Muslim surroundings. The article sheds light on what orientation towards the life of the Prophet and the salaf sālih (the pious ancestors) means for the informants, especially focusing on their negotiations of being Salafiyya-oriented Muslims and citizens of Germany. Looking at their reasoning behind their own standing towards other persons labelling them Salafis, towards non-Salafis and towards possible opponents of Salafism, we provide insight into negotiations of political action, citizenship, identity and belongingness from an emic approach.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, the hadith “The best of my people is my generation [contemporaries], then those who come after them, then those who come after them” (Al -Bukhari, 2000: 718, Kitab Fadaʾil Ashab al-Nabi). See also Muslim (2000: 1079; Kitab Fadaʾil al-Sahaba 52).

  2. For further details on the influence of Ibn Taimiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jauziyya on contemporary Salafism and the diverging interpretations of their writings, see Krawietz (2014a, 2014b).

  3. In August and September 2014 a group of young men, wearing high-visibility vests with the inscription “Shariah Police”, patrolled the city centre of Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia) and called on people in front of gambling halls and bars to respect Islamic laws. See, for example, Der Spiegel (2014).

  4. An overview of the variety in Salafism and theological differences between various Salafi groups is provided, for example, by the contributions of Meijer (2009); Said and Fouad (2014) and Wagemakers (2012: 145–154). Examples of insights into the thoughts of Salafis, based on empirical research and interviews with members of the addressed group, are given by, for example, Pall (2013); Gauvain (2013) and de Koning (2009, 2012, 2013).

  5. All interlocutors have been anonymized.

  6. Hisnu l-Muslim (“Fortress for the Muslim”) is a compilation of several hundred examples of duʿaʾ and dhikr by Saʿid bin ʿAli bin Wahf Al-Qahtani, who was a student of ʿAbdul Aziz Bin Baz, the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia. They are supposed to be carried out in Arabic, but manifold collections are available for non-Arabic-speaking Muslims in bilingual forms such as booklets, downloads for free on the Internet or apps, sometimes also accompanied by audio files for easier memorisation.

  7. In order to keep the anonymity of our interviewees, we refrain from further details on this mosque, as well as from quoting references to it in German newspapers.

  8. Pierre Vogel, also known as Abu Hamza, was born in 1978 and is a former professional boxer who converted to Islam in 2001. After studying at Umm Al Qura University in Mecca from 2004 to 2006, he started preaching in Germany and is today often described as one of the foremost Salafi preachers in Germany (Thielmann 2014: 167). Abu Abullah, born in 1972 by the real name Baher Ibrahim, also belongs to the network of Pierre Vogel and is observed by the German domestic intelligence service, which considers him a radical Salafi (Die Zeit 2015; Baehr 2014: 240).

  9. For further details on inner-Salafi debates on how to define apostasy, see salafipublications.com (2016).

  10. An Islamic group that appeared in the first century of Islam and broke into revolt against the authority of Caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib, who was later assassinated by one of its members. For Muslims, the name Khawarij is often associated with violent rebellion and disruption of the unity of Muslims.

  11. For further details, see Hashim Kamali (2006).

  12. For a further explanation, see above.

  13. See, for example, Süddeutsche Zeitung (2014).

  14. See also, e.g., the thread in Ahlu-sunnah.de (2011/Ahlu-sunnah.de 2012).

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  1. Department of Islamic Studies / Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923, Köln, Germany

    Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf & Mira Menzfeld

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  1. Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf
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  2. Mira Menzfeld
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Correspondence to Mira Menzfeld.

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Damir-Geilsdorf, S., Menzfeld, M. “Looking at the life of the prophet and how he dealt with all these issues.” Self-positioning, demarcations and belongingness of German salafis from an emic perspective. Cont Islam 10, 433–454 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-016-0361-7

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