Keywords

This contribution attempts to shed light on the nature of the relationship between French Salafi communities and the most prominent contemporary Gulf power. Undeniably, Saudi Arabia historically perceives itself as an “authentic” and “orthodox” center for Muslims all over the globe. Moreover, as we have been witnessing for decades the globalization of certain religious “codes” which raise fears of I could call a “Gulf-banlieues continuum” that would undermine French interests and identity, this is high time to tackle the issue of how Saudi Arabia is perceived among French Salafi groups. In this piece, I will demonstrate that positive representations are at the heart of how Saudi Arabia is seen and valorized. The connection between French Salafis and this country can best be described as a “reverse Orientalism” as this country is seen through the very interesting and original eyes of people who are part of the West while they reject it and identify with Orientals who are, in the meantime, framed according to a very specific culturalist view but are finally superior to the West. Due to the interaction of several circles of socialization (Salafi community, French society, young generations…), the East ultimately comes to the point this is a moral and conceptual category as well as a cultural and geographical reality which stands for by essence what the West does not. By being subject to a very specific understanding, Saudi Arabia becomes thus established as a place to be praised for having always been constructed on “pure” Islamic principles.

This article is based on several years of doctoral work (2004–2011) in which I analyzed how French Salafis were socialized to become “orthodox” believers whose everyday morality and practices are governed by emulating the first Muslims. I met with over one hundred French Salafists, more than half of whom I conducted interviews with, in addition to hundreds of hours of participant observation at their mosques, homes, jobs, and spaces of socialization. This fieldwork led me to a number of cities within the Paris region, including Mantes-la-Jolie, Les Mureaux, Stains, Argenteuil, Saint-Denis, Nanterre, Villeneuve-la-Garenne, Montreuil, Levallois-Perret, Athis-Mons, Corbeil-Essonnes, Sartrouville, La Courneuve, Clichy-sous-Bois, Montfermeil, Asnières, Gennevilliers, Colombes, La Garenne-Colombes, Maisons-Alfort, Courbevoie, Vitry-sur-Seine, Draveil, Juvisy-sur-Orge, Epinay-sur-Seine, as well as the center of Paris. In addition, I spent several months studying Salafi socialization in the context of migrations of salvation that a certain number of Salafis undertake in order to guard themselves against the “infidel” French social body, choosing to go live in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Malaysia, or any country with a Muslim majority in order to be reborn within a context that has been historically permeated by Islam. In terms of their sociological characteristics, about two-thirds of French Salafis are of North African origin. Within these puritan communities, which are estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000 people (Godard, 2015) (although this is difficult to estimate exactly as Salafism in France echoes to a bunch a local communities), a majority are the children or grandchildren of North African immigrants, primarily Algerian (namely, nearly half of the people that I met, the majority of whom are Kabyle). Converts to Salafism represent between 25 and 30% of the total (more than half of which also have ties to migration, even though a substantial part of this sub-group comes from French native families). The rest of the followers are from other immigrant-origin families (primarily from West Africa). It is important to emphasize that Turkish immigrants in France, as well as their children, have remained, since the beginnings of Salafism in the 1990s, unreceptive to this preaching. The geographical origin of Salafism as concerns France is double.

My research highlights the fact that the Salafi communities are generally composed of post-adolescents or young adults who mainly come from North African (especially Algerian) immigrant families. Their economic background is usually poor as coming mainly from immigrant families and living in the impoverished suburbs where geographical and social handicaps have been accumulating for decades. I also noticed that an important proportion of converts (between a quarter and a third) come from non-Muslim immigration (mainly from Christian African families1). Geographically speaking, the main regions in France where Salafism is influential are within the North and in the regions of Paris, Lyon, and Marseille - even though the movement has now spread across the entire nation. The two main channels through which Salafism has come to France are Algeria and Saudi Arabia, even though the latter country has always been more prestigious and central in terms of audience. In the early 1990s, at a time when the Internet was almost inexistent in France, the conflict in Algeria led some imams, who were rejecting both Jihadi violence and the government’s policy, to head to France, where they had opportunities to start preaching in certain mosques. However, with the rise of the Internet and the much higher prestige associated with Saudi Arabia (Farquhar, 2016),2 this country should be considered the main provider of Salafi narratives in France since the 1990s. Finally, it appears that the vast majority of Salafi preachers who have made this vision popular among certain Muslim communities since the 1990s have studied in the Gulf (mainly the universities of Medina and Mecca), or in institutions located elsewhere in the Muslim world but under the supervision of Saudi-trained clerics.

Most of the preachers who made Salafi narratives popular refer to the Saudi predicative apparatus. This consists of two levels. The first is organically and officially tied to the ruling power. Made up of the Committee of the Great Scholars3 (Hayat Kibar al- ‘Ulama) and the Permanent Representation for Research and the Islamic Fatwa (Lajnat ad-Daima lil-Buhuth wal-Ifta), it provides the most significant religious referees within the Saudi state and society. Bearing the status of “Minister,” each of the Committee’s members provides counsel on crucial (and very diverse) issues, which not only relate to the monarchy’s policies, but also touch upon all events involving Muslims around the world.4 In parallel, a network supporting the dissemination of Salafism is enshrined in Saudi Arabia’s role as a center for teaching. The prestige and means attached to the universities of Mecca and Medina have attracted and taught numerous senior religious members (imams, etc.) who later put this Muslim current on offer around the globe. Unlike the official apparatus, this scholarly network, by hosting and training thousands of people (without all of them finishing their cursus honorum), does not only engage with Saudi nationals, but involves several dozens of French nationals since the 1990s as well.5

The presence of this puritan form of Islam in France is first of all due to informal networks of preaching linked to the Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia, or to Muslim majority countries (Jordan, Mauritania, etc.), where imams and preachers who were trained in Saudi Arabia have spread, and whose religious specialization, enabled for several decades by financial power linked to oil, has led to the emergence and globalization of an explicitly Salafi version of Islam, namely centered on the teachings (often exclusively) of Salafi clergy of reference. Among them are Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (680–750), Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), and Ibn Abdul-Wahab6 (1703–1792) (Bowering, Crone and Kadi 2012). The alliance of the latter with the al-Sa’ud family allowed the creation and consolidation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Largely influenced both by official religious institutions in the country, which are perceived by the majority of French Salafis as the main poles of diffusion of contemporary Muslim orthodoxy, and by clerics having studied in this country before spreading to the rest of the Muslim world (as is the case of the Syrian-Jordanian al-Albani [1914–1999]), this vision was brought to France by students who became preachers after training in Saudi universities (primarily in Medina and Mecca) or in other religious institutions in other Muslim countries that have been influenced by the same teaching. Since the 1990s, taking advantage of the Internet, this form of Islam has influenced individuals among young generations who have been disappointed by religious socialization within the family (often based on the country of origin) and who are looking for other forms of Islam deemed more authentic.

This work focuses mainly on Saudi Arabia insofar as this is the main pole today from which discourse, distinct religious conceptualizations and symbols originate for the use of Muslims around the globe. A large literature in sociology already exists when it comes to studying relationships between Muslims in France (whose presence today is principally due to past waves of migrations) and countries of origin, starting with Algeria, Morocco, and Turkey (Amiraux, 2012; Bowen, 2010; Godard, 2015; Godard & Taussig, 2009; Kepel, 1987; Laurence & Vaïsse, 2007). It thus appears that these connections are first driven by states seeking political influence and Muslims seeking cultural affiliation (Godard & Taussig, 2009, pp. 74–76). Regarding religious contents, it is difficult to argue that official forms of Islam in these countries (except Turkey whose connection with its emigrants and families is much stronger) have been shaping the mentality of French-born Muslims, who are primarily indifferent to what seem to be discourses disconnected from their daily lives. On the contrary, there is very little work on Islam in France from a transnational perspective, which this contribution modestly attempts to remedy. The search for domestic legal and cultural forms of Islam (“Islam de France”) has for years turned attention away from other forms of Islamic identification whose origin is located in the Gulf. A few ground-breaking studies have addressed the issue of Salafism as a rising reality among French Muslims (Adraoui, 2020) as well as a transnational religiosity from the Gulf to Europe (Al-Rasheed, 2015; Meijer, 2009; Roy, 2014), but this is still an emerging field. More importantly, references in the French public debate to visible types of Islam originating in the Gulf are systematically interpreted as a danger for national identity and values. While North African countries such as Morocco and Algeria are subject to ambiguous discourse, such as when leading politicians call for a French form of Islam distancing itself from migrants’ countries of origin while in reality partnering with Moroccan authorities to bring imams to teach “moderate Islam” to their fellow citizens (Hoffner, 2017),7 it is clear that Saudi conceptions have been targeted as dangerous for a long time.

1 French Salafi Orientalism: A Construction of the Self and the Otherness

The individual is the actor of his existence and relations with the social world. The relationships he weaves, the positions he takes, as well as the identity chords that he plays to produce the meaning by which he is going to try and understand society, all this results from a choice. Still, this angle of analysis does not suffice; an individual relationship with society must also be grasped in its interaction with an environment that is neither a tangible nor even an immutable given. Rather, it inserts itself in a reality constructed as much by the actor, whose vision determines a representation of the world that in turn will affect the meaning that he imparts to his actions, as it is affected by others who position themselves around different issues and with whom he interacts in interpreting a situation. However, beyond the real motivations advanced by the actors, what can explain the choice of such a process of identification? Here, I formulate the hypothesis according to which the analysis of the latter must be rendered by more than a purely psychological study, to the extent that the phenomenon constitutes a social fact that must be decoded as such by paying particular attention to changes in the rest of society. As social material, Salafism must be explicated by the social8and not by an investigation of an exclusively religious nature that could only spark an essentialist reflection on the nature of this phenomenon (Roy, 2006, p. 12). In short, what are the factors framing the Orientalist views promoted by French Salafis?

In my research, I have interviewed dozens of Salafis who proclaimed in majority being fascinated by Saudi Arabia as the country wherein clerics are the wisest and closest to the version of Islam experienced by the first generations of Muslims. This does not mean that the state in itself is obeyed. Some Salafis, for instance, do not identify to regimes but only to clerics wherever they may be located. The Saudi state, in this regard, is no exception morally. Although, unlike Jihadis promoting political violence against any regime supposedly betraying Islam (by allying with the United States for instance), quietist Salafis do not advocate for overthrowing regimes, they may focus on strict religious considerations instead of defending or supporting explicitly Saudi Arabia for instance. However, French Salafis in majority clearly feel at ease in saying this country is to be seen as the true defender of “genuine Islam.” As clerics are deeply connected to the royal family, and more generally speaking, to the state apparatus, anything coming from them is perceived to be due to the nature of the regime. This contribution could have highlighted several cases of French Salafis speaking highly of Saudi Arabia, but three illustrations bring us to consider the Orientalist dimension of their relationship toward this country so specific. I am focusing here on Orientalism. This concept has been forged in the interaction of European and Eastern cultures (including Islam) in the context of the eighteenth century (MacKenzie, 1995).

2 French Salafis and Saudi Arabia: A Religious Utopia?

Saudi Arabia is perceived through the prism of religious imagination, which splits the world between those who identify with Islam and those who assign little importance to it. This division has the principal effect of producing a view of the Muslim world imprinted by an “Orientalist” dimension. This in effect is only possible because the practicing people see the world of “the exterior” as socialized actors in a context that is first “European” or “Western.” For this part, we adopt Edward Saïd’s definition of “Orientalism” that proposes a conception of this artistic and intellectual tradition which permits grasping and criticizing its epistemological and moral postulates (Saïd, 1994). However, this specific Orientalist stance distinguishes itself by inverting the relation of superiority. Indeed, the essentialization of the Islamic East benefits it. In this respect, French Salafis introduce a new form of Orientalist construction even though their appeal to Gulf Islamic countries is largely built upon views similar to those held by the West.

The Salafis have an “Orientalist” view of the Muslim world because they develop a discourse about the Orient, an entity to which they above all give a religious consistency. The theme of the “refuge Orient” encapsulates their relationship with this “world of Islam” supposedly grounded in an ethical perspective diametrically opposed to what prevails in the West. The religious reference makes of this part of the world a veritable symbolic place of asylum. To name one example, Saudi Arabia is represented as the most telling illustration of the perpetuation of the time of the “Pious Ancestors.” A pole of religious stability remaining distant from the intellectual and political evolutions that have touched the rest of the world (Hobsbawm, 1996, 155), this country is favored because of how it would symbolize a constancy lasting centuries.

However, the study of the “Orientalist” socialization evidences certain peculiarities in this regard, reifying as much “the world of the Muslim Orient” and “the Muslim Oriental.” It needs nevertheless to be said that this Orientalism overturns the bulk of its historical postulates. The Salafi conception of the Orient is therefore distinct from the tradition initiated in Europe that saw in this part of the world a mirror reflecting favorably on “self.”

2.1 The Orientalism of the French Salafis: A “Western” View of the Orient

The fact of presenting the “world of Islam” like a unidimensional entity corresponds to an attempt at reification of these societies through a grid of culturalist reading. The “Oriental” is a Muslim. However, the relation to the Orient is not so much linked to a sensory or potent vision as it is to a “scientific” examination. Its principal attraction resides in the fact that it shelters the “scholars,” human vectors for transmission of sacred knowledge without which the human being cannot access the truth. “Land of science,” the Muslim Orient first of all distinguishes itself by representations linked to the ʿUlama. These are in effect the most powerful symbols of the singularity of this world. Because they call forth grace on the rest of society by the fact of preaching an “authentic” teaching, they incarnate the spinal column of the Islamic civilization. The Oriental is no longer a body, an impassioned character or even a human being inclined “by nature” to a magical reading of the world, but a person who “rationalizes” his relationship to religion and thus to the world by the “scientist” intervention of the authorized clerics. It is the Westerner who is revealed as the passionate being by refusing to consider the Muslim religion. Unified in the Salafi perception, “the world of Islam” is foremost that of the “scholars” who are meant to rule over it, making of it the form of social organization most antinomic to the West. “Rooted” in history for its greatest advantage, the Muslim world thus separates itself from the Western sphere. The various divisions that arise from this furnish the substrate for the Salafi imagination. Cut off forever from the West, the Orient becomes the receptacle for a purely “Western” vision. Reducing the “Oriental” identity to the Islamic identity, the social rules that predominate in it are perceived as emanations from scholarly opinions.

The French Salafi, in solidarity with this country, can be viewed as “the guardian of the throne of the Saud” in the name of a reterritorialization of the religious identity that sees in this society the most excellent country for a “purified” practice of Islam. This “Saudism” induced by the love of “scholars” equally concerns the political power heading up this country, just as it can be confirmed with the defense of King Abdallah, on whom reflects the aura of the ʿUlama. By their moral ascendancy, the Saudi state is thus able to control the representations or the feelings of allegiance of most of the practicing people in the world. Despite a discourse notably preaching “denationalization,” while the Salafi belongs to an “impious society,” the imaginary socialization indeed attracts a return of the feeling of belonging to the Orient. Improvising himself as the guardian of legitimacy of Arabia, the French Salafi is the loyal “defender of the throne of the Saud” (to paraphrase Leveau, 1985). In addition to rediscovering the Arab heritage, the Salafi career is equally synonymous with a certain “pro-Saudi nationalism.” The symbolic centrality of Arabia thus makes space for a true feeling of allegiance that can engender a militancy working for the defense of this country (Mayer, 2005).9 It expresses itself through images and stances tending to “exceptionalize” the Saudi Kingdom de facto and de visu as the state and social model for Muslims. Among the many videos that we can find on the Salafi web, there is one called that clearly shows how most of French Salafis perceive Saudi Arabia. The Salafi virtual world is a major site for the branding of Saudi Arabia, as is shown by selected French websites (www.salafs.com, www.sounna.com, www.labonnereference.fr etc.), which frequently allude to the religious pre-eminence of the Saudi state. A video shared by a French Salafi on the file-sharing website Dailymotion makes known this state’s prestige in defending—as its baseline—“authentic” Islam. The video’s title is explicit and should be understood as an answer to those vilifying the Kingdom’s putative hypocrisy: The Tawhid’s Nation, like it or not! The word Tawhid means “unity” in Arabic and makes reference to the Salafis’ pure monotheism. Saudi Arabia, due to the presence of “orthodox” clerks, is seen as the state whose preaching finds its most elaborate form in our age. Indeed, the most knowledgeable scholars on scriptural sources are available to the monarchy. The 19-minute video is a defense of the Saudi state as Islam’s protector, namely of the Tawhid (“Unicity of God”), and it is thus an element in the religious debate and competition sought by the practicants. We underline the second part of the title “like it or not,” which makes it sound like they are thumbing their noses at Muslims who vilify the Saudi state. In making it the incarnation of the defense of divine unicity, the quietist Salafis reify this country, thus confirming a unidimensional—because specifically Islamist—vision of the Orient and of this country especially. Another interesting thing about this video is how it captures part of the Salafi imagination by projecting the symbols that carry along Saudi society and, beyond it, the Orient. We may note in this regard that the images10 correspond generally to those conveyed by numerous Western media in reporting on the societies of the Middle East. The video opens with these words written in white against a purple background after which rapidly scrolled the ritual formula “in the name of God the merciful in essence and excellence” (written in phonetic French):

We hear Saudi Arabia criticized a great deal and it seems to me wise to tell you one thing…

It is a strange fact…have you already asked yourself to what this stupefying consensus is due…?

Some of the final sequences in this video are even more interesting as they directly refer to how the former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, had to recognize the political and religious importance of this kingdom. What needs to be the most emphasized here is how the classical diplomatic relations between two states are framed in the mind of the French Salafi authoring this video, who does not hesitate to mock Sarkozy’s desire to maintain positive ties with the Gulf state and relates this “hypocrisy” to the power of the religious ideal supposedly ruling this country. Described as the “CEO of the 5th world power [who] has to duck…,” Sarkozy is in turn inveighed against while images march across the screen of him delivering a speech in Riyad, during his visit to Saudi Arabia in January 2008, in which he speaks of “[his] dear friends of Saudi Arabia” and his refusal to see “imposed a sole model of civilization.” At the end of the Sarkozy clip, the video segues into a second half. Now comes the moment when the author slips in the following comment, sounding like a quip aimed at the ensemble of the figures displaying their hostility or their self-interested allegiance toward Saudi Arabia in the video.

3 An Orientalism “of the Interior,” or How to Reify the Orient When You Are from It

The Salafi Orientalist view is also distinguished by the fact that it is a Western look at “the world of Islam” emanating from actors that, for the most part, come from families that are native to this reconstructed oriental space. Here the expression “Western Orientalism” seems justified because it allows building a “knowledge” of the Muslim world from the outside (the West) and to turn it into a homogeneous social body. But also, the Salafi vision can be seen as one of “Orientalism by the Oriental” for those who never stopped thinking of themselves as Arabs. This view of the Orient, endogenous because of its provenance from believers who resisted the discredit cast on the Muslim world in Western lands, thus manifests itself through a paradox. The positive vision of the Orient proceeds from a form of reification that is justified in part in the socialization within European society, even while the Salafi refuses to think of himself as belonging to this society. Their Orientalism is thus typically “Western” in the way it represents the “the world of Islam” as a world apart, but also specifically “oriental” and thus in a sense endogenous because it insists on constantly valorizing this part of the world. Salafi socialization, if it opens into a sort of “pro-Saudi nationalism,” leads the devotees to perpetuate a sort of “paradise lost” syndrome.

3.1 An Orientalism “in Reverse”: An Orient Better Than the West

The supposed nature of the Oriental makes him superior to the Westerner; therefore, Islam is going to serve as a value scale for comparing the two societies. The view of the “world of Islam” valorizes the countries it comprises, starting with Saudi Arabia. The image conveyed by “the country of Holy Places” thus constitutes an illustration evidently of the fact that a Muslim society that applies its precepts and the “societies of the West” cannot be compared. Thought of as “the country of scholars,” Arabia is valorized by virtue of the continual irrigation by the preaching work of the ʿUlama. We see it in the images of order and justice echoed by the Saudi reference. Orientalized by a Salafi view that Islamizes the Saudi reality, this country becomes a model for the world. Embodying all that the West does not want to be, Saudi Arabia illustrates both temperance and requirements.

This double dimension of preaching forms the foundation of the “reverse” Orientalism the French Salafis adopt when they pay attention to the Muslim world and especially Saudi Arabia. The images that they associate with it in this respect are explicit, as illustrated by the words of Samir. Thirtyish, with a neo-traditionalist profile, son of a Tunisian merchant, he distinguished himself by a critical view of the other Salafis. A number of fellows, indeed, according to him are too inclined to think of themselves as “unique” Muslims. While disapproving of the “deviationism” of other tendencies, he exhibits a certain disdain for his peers who, barely converted, make a point of rejecting other believers. The principles of Salafism may be paradigmatic for him, but that does not justify vanity. On the contrary, in the manner of the ʿUlama he admires and many of whom live in “the country of the two sanctuaries,” his religiosity first of all commands a spirit of responsibility. As he himself says, one day he hopes to settle in this country so that he can be inundated by the “sacred science” behind which the “scholars” are the moving force.

Author: And, in your view, who defends the true Islam?

Samir: There are scholars, there’s science. We know all that’s needed is return to the scholarly texts. I know what they often say. They say that some young people apply what they hear, they dress like I do, they have the beard but their behaviors, let’s say…

(…)

Author: And which scholars do you identify with?

Samir: Frankly, well…Me, I say that the scholars, you find them in great numbers in Saudi Arabia already. Well, it’s the country…the country which…where…. Right, we know that Saudi Arabia distributes cassettes for learning how to do the hajj [“pilgrimage”]. All right, after that, what can you say. They have scholars there, the mashaykh [plural of shaykh] who teach Islam correctly. You know where you’re headed. There’s one book, one Quran; everything that’s added on is not my religion. There are movements that are heading for disaster trying to introduce things that are not in Islam.

(…)

Author: So, for you, it’s the Islam practiced in Arabia which is the most…? The truest, the most authentic?

Samir: Like I told you. It’s a country that practices the daʾwa. It translates Qurans, it prints Qurans. Under King Feisal, Arabia has built mosques. There has been a historical continuity since. A king, it’s a sheik with a thousand times the power, in a sense. If he decides to do the daʾwa, then the country turns into a center of the daʾwa.

Author: So, for you, the truth then is found over there?

Samir: The truth is known. The unfortunate thing is ignorance. All right, I won’t hide my dream from you, it’s to live in Saudi Arabia. It’s the dream of all who follow the Sunna. I went there on the hajj. I touched the dream with my finger for three weeks.

Author: So Arabia is the dream for you?

Samir: It’s the country of scholars. That’s where they are, the scholars of the Sunna.

Author: And what do you answer to those who say that over there the scholars obey the people in the royal family? The political power is still in the hands of the monarchy.

Samir: Let’s imagine it’s a pear cut in half. Or an orange if you like. In this country, there is an eternal pact. The scholars and the king march hand in hand. Not like in other Muslim countries, like Morocco, for example. In Morocco, it’s a picture of modernity. In Arabia, you can’t; it’s a pact between the two that dates back to…

Author: And what do you say to those who say Arabia isn’t what it pretends to be? That there’s a great difference between the country and the image it wants to project?

Samir: They attack Saudi Arabia, but I understand why. It is Islam’s base. The Prophet warned against a time when Islam would be persecuted and Islam would find its home like the serpent returns to its burrow. This is Medina. Me, I don’t reject anyone, but they reject the whole world. The Prophet, in a hadith, he said that the entire world will go to Paradise except those who turn it down. By that he wanted to say that you have to follow the Quran and the Sunna. We know therefore that religion is finished and that there is a sole path to follow. This road we know is the one taken in Saudi Arabia.

What we have here is a mixture of two sorts of feelings. First, disdain for French society, described as a place where traditional values are said to be no longer respected in addition to a distrust regarding Muslims. Second, the appeal to a country in the Gulf which is mentioned with no reference to its non-religious dimension. Only the fact of being built upon a fundamentalist understanding of Islam is paid attention to. The alliance with the United States as well as its “ambiguous” policy toward the Muslim Brothers or the Jihadis (sometimes conciliatory, sometimes foes over the last decades) is never mentioned. More precisely, it turns out that the first point cannot be considered to be specific to the French Salafis. Being extremely critical toward how Islam is treated in the public debate and the use of certain Muslims serving as “alibis” for the French authorities is indeed something quite widespread among numerous people of Islamic descent. However, a huge difference is related to how Saudi Arabia gets praised as a moral alternative to what appears to be an absence of perspectives for Muslims in France. In other words, the “mirror effect” benefitting the Saudi religious model fully plays out in Samir’s words.

3.2 Constructing a West as a Negative Mirror of the Orient, or Salafi Occidentalism

If, for Edward Said, the main consequence of the Orientalist tradition in the political domain has been to justify the domination of oriental countries by Western states, starting with Europeans launching a colonial enterprise, the Salafi view contests that conception. A split is even clearly observable because, in a reverse move, the Western world, essentialized in turn, becomes the negative of the Muslim Orient. Burdened by all the defects that a civilization can have when it does not recognize Islam as the foundation of its values and its laws, the West finds itself reduced by virtue of the same reflex by which numerous men of letters, artists, or politicians for centuries conceived of the figure of the Oriental. This reversal of representations is at the heart of a true Occidentalism. This collection of supposedly homogeneous or even identical societies, because of hewing to the same attachment to values that deprecated the Islamic referential, thus becomes the favorite target of the practicing Muslim’s duty of rejection. The West becomes the “negative” mirror of the Islamic countries. Shriveled spiritually and built on sand, the Western way of life is decadent, removed from the “divine utopia” which Samir tells us about.

4 Concluding Remarks: an Imaginary Socialization?

The French Salafi Orientalist view of Saudi Arabia seems to refer to what I can call an “imaginary socialization.” It relates more generally to the part of reciprocal construction between the subject and the object. Here, the manner in which the Salafi constructs and is constructed by the Saudi society is the source of a vision of the world according to which the kingdom becomes a model of religiosity and piousness. The imaginary socialization echoes the polysemy of religious concepts but also the different ways of apprehending the social space, a single one perduring in this socialization in order to render coherent the acts and positions taken by the practicants. In other words, the believer finds on this path what he looks for there. Consequently, this imaginary socialization allows hatching a “utopian mentality” (Mannheim, 1991) which will frame the process of reifying the space and time on which this construction is based, allowing in the case of French Salafis to dream of an Islamic alternative that is all the most enviable that the French context gets depreciated.

Notes

  1. 1.

    They used to live the Catholic religion in a personal manner but one that is mainly characterized by a retrospective frustration at not having been sufficiently grounded on the theoretical and practical levels of this religious affiliation. Accepting to claim the heritage of Jesus, a positive personage whose ultimate message is represented by Muhammad’s apostolate, the “post-Christian” Salafis are distinguished by a critical relationship with Catholicism and consider their entry into Salafism to be a more “rational” and “more logical” version of faith.

  2. 2.

    This is due to the presence of official Salafi institutions, global religious figures, and world-renowned Islamic universities that no other Muslim country can claim having, thus preventing them from reaching a transnational aura.

  3. 3.

    In Islam, “Scholar” (‘Alim) refers to a person who has knowledge on matters including religious ones.

  4. 4.

    The 2014 conflict in the Gaza strip has led the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia (Abdul-Aziz Al-Shaykh) and the representative of the Committee to stand against public demonstrations organized in support of the Palestinians, which they viewed as leading to “anarchy” and the disunity of Muslims.

  5. 5.

    To my knowledge, only one person has successfully finished this course and now lives in France (in Gennevilliers). He is a young Imam and has confided that he had thought of settling in the Gulf region (having been offered a prestigious position in Kuwait) before finally deciding to return to France.

  6. 6.

    That is why many people today call Salafis ‘Wahabis.’ This is to highlight they are mainly following some teachings originating in Saudi Arabia. However, this calling is first of all meant to split them from a more ancient legacy echoing back to the very first centuries of Islam. That is why, we call them Salafis and not Wahabis (which is not a rigorous concept to describe these purist communities).

  7. 7.

    In 2015, for instance, French President Hollande signed an agreement calling for “a closer cooperation in the field of imams’ training” in order to strengthen “values of openness and tolerance.”

  8. 8.

    “The first origin of a social process of any importance must be sought in how the internal social milieu is constituted” (Durkheim, 2007, p. 111).

  9. 9.

    Jean‑François Mayer coins the term “theopolitics” to describe the religious dynamics that structure new forms of solidarity with entities all or part of which attach to a religious resource.

  10. 10.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8mv6u_la-nation-du-tawhid-ne-vous-en-depl_news.