What divides Salafis: how local realities overwrite grand typologies in Cambodia’s Salafi movement

Quintan Wiktorowicz’s typology and other methods of classification developed by other scholars from his approach have been the most popular when studying Salafism. However, such typologies, especially when examining Salafism in non-Middle Eastern and minority contexts, have their shortcomings. The first main problem with current typologies is that they discuss distinct Salafi factions at a specific time and local context, but intend to be universal. However, these factions often tend not to be conceptually different, as in many cases, their participants only behave differently due to different circumstances in different localities. Second, these typologies were devised by scholars who chiefly study the Middle East and distinguish different Salafi groups based on their discourses on issues often relevant only in Middle Eastern contexts. This article tests the applicability of the existing classifications of Salafism by drawing on three ethnographic case studies from Cambodia. In Cambodia, Salafism emerged in a Muslim minority context. With the expansion of its networks, fragmentation occurred within the movement due to disagreements such as how to deal with the Muslim (non-Salafi) other and the non-Muslim majority. The article argues that classifications should be set up based on observing local group dynamics instead of being universal. This is because differences among Salafis, just as in other social movements, mainly arise due to the participants’ interaction with the local realities and issues.


Introduction
The vast majority of academic works classify Salafism building on Wiktorowicz's tripartite typology, which distinguishes three Salafi factions: the purists, the politicos, and the jihadis. Several researchers on the movement, such as Bangstad and Linge (2015), Pall (2013Pall ( , 2018, and Wagemakers (2017), criticized the rigidity of this classification and suggested modifications that recognize the fluidity between these categories and the diversity of the movements even within a certain type.
The main problem with typologies based on Wiktorowicz's classification is that these approaches classify Salafis according to their attitudes and discourses toward politics, mainly in Middle Eastern contexts. Perhaps, the most sophisticated and useful approach came from Wagemakers (2017), who recognizes the flaw in Wiktorowicz's typology which distinguishes the above-mentioned three categories based on their method of action while arguing that they follow the same creed (′aqida). Wagemakers instead argues that the difference between Salafis lies in their ideology and modifies Wiktorowicz's typology accordingly. He renames the purist quietists and distinguishes three subgroups: aloofists, i.e., those who remain aloof toward political participation, loyalists, and propagandists. For Wagemakers, politicos consist of those who are keener to participate in public affairs, while jihadis see the use of violence as necessary in the current political context.
Wagemakers' typology, too, is largely based on his research in the Middle East, particularly Jordan, where indeed the discourses on how to interact with political authority make or break a group or network (Wagemakers, 2014(Wagemakers, , 2016. This classification is useful for discussing Salafis in localities where the main division within the movement relates to politics. In other local contexts, however, this might be less relevant and might not influence much the networks and group affiliations of the Salafis. For example, the Saudi Salafi scholar Rabi' bin Hadi al-Madkhali and his followers may influence the emergence of separate groups and networks which identify with them in Jordan and Kuwait, where the ruler is Muslim and where the way how to interact with the ruler is heavily contested (i.e., is someone allowed by the shar′ia to join demonstrations or criticize the ruler openly or form political parties?). Yet, in other places, the issues of political participation and the rights and obligations of the subjects toward the ruler are not the most important ones in Salafi circles. As I show below, in Cambodia, where Muslims are a minority, discourses related to political authority do not create cleavages within the Salafi community. Other issues, such as relating themselves to the local culture and the way to interact with non-Salafi Muslims and Khmer Buddhists, are more pressing and generate greater differences within the movement.
This article discusses the ways Salafis in Cambodia's Muslim minority differ from each other. It shows that applying Wiktorowicz's typology or any other typology which scrutinizes the Salafis' attitude toward political authority is much less applicable in the specific Cambodian context. The article argues that, in general, setting up grand theories to classify Salafis might only provide benefits when examining such globally influential scholars as ′Ali al-Halabi, ′Aid al-Qarni, or ′Uthman al-Khamis, as the main difference in their discourses is indeed related to political participation. 1 Such grand theories have little value when scrutinizing specific local contexts. For example, very often, local concerns and debates among Salafis do not mirror that of the above-mentioned Middle Eastern Salafi ′ulama'. The article, therefore, proposes to describe the divisions of Salafis in local contexts based on empirical data and set up typologies based on that. For the current case study, the article suggests imagining Salafis on a continuum according to their attitudes toward their sociocultural context. This approach may be applied to other similar contexts as well.
The article relies on a multidisciplinary approach utilizing the tools of Islamic studies and social anthropology. Ethnographic data was collected in Cambodia between 2017 and 2022 during a series of fieldwork among Cambodia's Muslim minority. I have visited Salafi Islamic boarding schools and stayed in the homes of Salafis and non-Salafi Muslims in the Cambodian countryside countless times. On these occasions, I also conducted several semi-structured interviews which inform this article. My experience in examining Islamic religious texts helped analyzing the discourses of Cambodian Salafis whom I interviewed.

Salafism in Cambodia
Debates and attitudes toward political regimes that resulted in the three-tier academic classification of Salafis have had little impact on the internal structure of Salafism in Cambodia. Rather, the movement's fragmentation here is related to the local sociopolitical and socioreligious context. Therefore, it is worth taking a brief look at the evolution of the Islamic community in this Southeast Asian country and the insertion of Salafism in it.
Muslims in Cambodia, where Buddhism is the predominant religion, constitute between 2 and 6% of the population. 2 Around 75% of the community belong to the Austronesian-speaking Cham ethnic group, while the rest are mainly Khmer-speaking Chvea, whose ancestry goes back to the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra. The Muslim communities live dispersed across the country, and most of them consider themselves immigrants, especially the Cham. The latter arrived in the country in waves between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries when the polities of Champa gradually became absorbed by Vietnam (Collins, 1996, 18-34;Weber, 2012

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Cambodia. As a result, the relationship between the Cambodian ruling elite and the Muslim community has been mostly cordial (Pall and Pérez 2012, 241-242). The only major exception was the Khmer Rouge rule between 1975 and 1979, when the Islamic religious infrastructure, including mosques and schools, was almost entirely destroyed, and the majority of the religious specialists were killed. 3 The majority of Cambodian Muslims are Sunni and mostly belong to the Shafi′i madhab, the predominant legal school in Southeast Asia. By the second half of the twentieth century, the Sunni community went through a process of cultural change that Bruckmayr (2019) calls Jawization. As a result, the religious practices began to greatly resemble those of the Muslims of the Malayan Peninsula, and the language of religious instruction became Malay as well. It has to be mentioned that the process of Jawization was not even. Some communities were less affected by Malay religious and cultural influences than others, which largely kept practicing Islam through the prism of their Cham heritage (Bruckmayr, 2019, 346-348). Since the nineteenth century, there has also been a community inspired by Middle Eastern Islamic reformism that rejected the following of a madhab and instead claimed to rely on the direct interpretation of the scripture (Bruckmayr, 2019, 124-158;Noseworthy, 2017).
The period after the 1989 Vietnamese withdrawal and the 1991 Paris peace accords saw developments that led to rapid socioreligious transformations and exceptional diversity within the Cambodian Muslim community. This was also the time when transnational networks became salient in the community. With the 1991 establishment of the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC), thousands of foreign NGOs set foot in Cambodia to rebuild the country after the decade-long civil war. Among these, several Islamic faith-based organizations, mainly from the Persian Gulf and Malaysia, but also from Europe, Indonesia, and Singapore, arrived to rebuild the religious and social infrastructure of the Muslim community. Along with these NGOs, transnational Islamic movements also established a presence in the country, including Tablighi Jama′at, Salafism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Fethullah Gülen movement (Bruckmayr, 2010). Due to the transnational influx of ideas, a few dozen households became Twelver Shi′a (Stock, 2020), and others started to follow the Ahmadiyya (Blengsli, 2009, 174).
Since the early 1990s, transnational ties have been crucial for the Cambodian Muslim minority. Transnational donors are still the main sources for development and educational projects, and the key actors within the community are all tied to these donors. For example, both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis are largely bankrolled by charities from the Gulf. The Tabligh also receive parts of the funding necessary to build and maintain their religious and educational institutions from individual donors, especially from Malaysia. 4 Transnational ties also provide a sense of belonging to a larger Muslim world for Cambodian Muslims who live in a minority situation (Pall, 2020, 244). 5 As the next 1 3 Contemporary Islam (2023) 17:263-281 section shows, to be able to maintain their transnational contacts, Cambodian Muslims have to accept the regime's cooptation.

The Islamic field in contemporary Cambodia
Islam is well integrated into the contemporary Cambodian state structures and its patronage networks. The Cambodian Peoples' Party (CPP -until 1991 Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party) has dominated the country's politics since the creation of the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) by the invading Vietnamese in 1979 and Prime Minister Hun Sen has been in his position since 1984. The ruling party has had its cadres in the bureaucracy of the rural communes. These individuals have been playing key roles in maintaining a system of handouts and surveillance (Un, 2005, 213-24). Since the 1990s, the CPP has integrated most of the business community into its patronage networks as well. Cambodia's economic elite is made up of state-dependent tycoons who are often connected through kinship ties, such as marriage, to the political elite and especially to Hun Sen's family (Laughlin, 2021: 256-258). In exchange for state contracts, tycoons are expected to make large donations to the CPP.
Most of the civil servants are also integrated into the regime's patronage system and receive promotions in exchange for showing support to the regime. Civil society organizations are also penetrated by the cadres of the CPP. Some of these, such as youth organizations, are important vehicles to control the politically active young people and select the future elite of the regime (Norén-Nilsson, 2021).
The regime strives to coopt and control the religious actors of Cambodia as well. For example, temples belonging to the main Buddhist branches receive large regular donations from members of the political and business elite in exchange for political quietism and for suppressing oppositional voices in their ranks (Guthrie, 2002;Strangio, 2014, 199-204;O'Lemmon, 2014). The situation is not different regarding Islam. In exchange for active political support, such as mobilization for CPP candidates during elections and limiting intra-communal divisions, foreign NGOs can launch projects and support local Muslim communities with the approval of and non-interference from the authorities. 6 The affairs of Cambodian Muslims are overseen by an Islamic religious bureaucracy which is also enmeshed in the regime's patronage system. There is a single Mufti in the country who represents the Sunni community, Kamaruddin Yusof. He has filled this position since 1996 and has a good relationship with the Cambodian ruling elite, including personal contacts with Hun Sen, which provides him with one of the main sources of his influence among the community. His connections to the elite ensure that projects initiated or supported by him get approval from the state authorities. Another source of the mufti's power is his control over the al-Nikmah school network, where graduates have better chances of getting scholarships to study 1 3 in Malaysia (Pall and Pérez 2020, 259-260). 7 Al-Nikmah graduates also have better chances to gain employment in the Islamic bureaucracy; hence, it is worth it for them to be loyal to the mufti.
In the Ministry for Cults of Religions, there is a department that deals with Islamic affairs, which is headed by a Muslim secretary of state. Similar to the Mufti, this secretary of state also enjoys a strong personal relationship with leading figures of CPP. The department is responsible for policies and official matters concerning the Muslim community, such as permits for foreign Muslims carrying out da′wa in the country or approval for foreign NGOs to open Islamic educational institutions.
Most of the Muslims who kept interpreting Islam in light of their Cham heritage set up a separate institutional structure from the Sunnis. Such structure is headed by Ong Knur, who fills a similar role to the Sunni mufti. The Krom Kan Imam San (the Community of Imam San) is followed by about 10% of Cambodian Muslims (Bruckmayr, 2017). Only a few Muslim villages refused to join the Sunnis or the Imam San. Those adopt practices that can be attributed to the Sunnis and also practices regarded as local, originating from the Cham, Malay, or Khmer traditions. 8 The Cambodian state strives to coopt various Islamic movements, which have appeared in the country since the end of the PRK in 1989. Tabligh-i Jamaʽat, which arrived in Cambodia in the 1980s and by now has become the largest Islamic movement in the country, has several ties to the regime to ensure that the movement can carry out proselytization freely among the Muslims. For example, the de-facto head of Tabligh is a police officer with direct access to Hun Sen. The most respected scholar in the movement, Shaykh Sulayman, is also said to be close to the prime minister's family. 9 The Muslim Brotherhood has been in Cambodia since 2005 through the charitable organization RAHMA International, which is financed and maintained by the al-Islah Society (Jamaʽiyyat al-Islah), the umbrella organization of the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood (Pall, 2020, 17, 25-29;Alkandari, 2014, 180-210;Freer, 2018, esp. 74-78 and 140-147). 10 RAHMA International maintains boarding houses in Phnom Penh for university students, a network of elementary and high schools, and several charity projects across the country. While it tried to maintain a degree of independence from the country's patronage system for a while, it failed, and by the end of the 2010s, it had begun to serve the interests of prominent Muslim politicians by buying material for its charity projects 9 Series of interviews with Tabligh members in Prek Pra village, Phnom Penh, and Kampot, January-February 2022. 10 RAHMA never announced publicly its affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood, but this is a common knowledge among Kuwaitis and Cambodian Muslims. 7 The al-Nikmah school network offers a Malaysian religious curriculum and the Cambodia curriculum as well and considered among the best educational institutions in Cambodia. Al-Nikmah is supported by Malaysian donors who also frequently grant scholarships to the graduates of the school networks to study in Malaysia. The recipients are most often chosen by the mufti. Interview with ak-Nikmah graduates, Phnom Penh, 7 January 2022. 8 Svay Pakao in Kampong Chnnang is one of those villages. The inhabitants, unlike the Imam San, pray five times a day, but at the same time follow the Cham calendar in defining the start of Ramadan, and hold Cham healing rituals, etc. Personal observations, January 2022.

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Contemporary Islam (2023) 17:263-281 from them. In addition, it finances these politicians' own humanitarian initiatives, which in turn serve their own popularity and not the reputation of RAHMA. 11 The hundreds of foreign Muslim NGOs from Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Middle East also integrated the regime's patronage networks in a similar way. Each of them is linked to one of the prominent figures of the Muslim community as well as high-ranking public servants and politicians. We need to understand the evolution and fractionalization of Salafism in this context.

The networks of Salafism in Cambodia
Salafi networks established themselves in Cambodia in the early 1990s when graduates from Saudi Arabia, who had previously escaped the Khmer Rouge, returned. During their student years, many of them established contacts with charities and individual donors in the Gulf who were willing to sponsor their daʽwa in their homeland. 12 Upon returning, these religious specialists or ustaz, 13 as they are locally referred to, typically established religious boarding schools (locally called markaz islami, pl. marakiz islamizza (ar.) -Islamic center) and built mosques in Muslim villages and neighborhoods. The Salafi-oriented Kuwaiti transnational charity, Jamaʽiyyat Ihya' al-Turath al-Islami (Society for the Revival of Islamic Heritage -SRIH), became the most active among these donors. The charity is part of a larger institutional structure in Kuwait which not only is active in promoting da′wa but also participates in parliamentary and municipal elections in Kuwait and has influence in several sectors of the state and society, such as trade unions and cooperatives (Pall, 2018(Pall, , 2020. Starting in 1995, SRIH built up a network of boarding schools which consists today of close to 40 marakiz islamiyya; most of them for men but some for women. Four of these offer education at the high school level (two for males and two for females), and the rest are elementary schools. These schools offer the Cambodian curriculum simultaneously with an Islamic curriculum established by SRIH, which is taught in Arabic. The quality of education is one of the best in Cambodia, with prospects for students to access the best universities in Cambodia or to study abroad in the Middle East, Thailand, and Malaysia in both religious studies and secular sciences. Hence, these schools both reproduce the Salafi religious elite and contribute to the emergence of a Muslim professional middle class (Pall and Pérez, 2021) .
In addition to building and maintaining boarding schools, SRIH also provides monthly salaries for preachers who usually settle in the countryside. This salary, however, is usually not sufficient to make a living but is considered a generous contribution for those daʽis who have other jobs. The charity's activities also include providing microfinance, digging wells, building healthcare facilities, and paying for the ʽaid al-fitr celebrations and for iftar for the poor during Ramadan.
Those Salafi networks independent from SRIH receive donations from other Gulf charities such as the Kuwaiti Jamaʽiyyat al-Hidaya (Hidaya Society), but they have a much more limited budget. Some others get funds from individual donors, usually rich businessmen from the Gulf. There is also a network of Salafis mostly active in providing offline and online lectures across the country, called the Islamic Educational Forum (IEF), and they are employed by the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Generally, it is impossible to discover differences regarding ideology between these networks. All of them interact with the government and support the CPP during elections to preserve their autonomy in carrying out their da′wa and educational activity, and therefore Wiktorowicz would perhaps categorize all of them quietists. Individual Salafis and the informal networks of their followers, however, differ from each other in discourse and interactions with both the larger Muslim community and the non-Muslim majority.

Classifying Cambodian Salafis
Classifying Salafis based on their relationship to the political authority would make little sense in a Cambodian context. Almost all Salafis participate in politics in some way, and they almost exclusively support the regime. As it might be already clear from the discussion in the previous section, they cannot really do otherwise if they want to keep the CPP's protection. As a Salafi ustaz told me in Battambang province, if he were not to endorse the CPP's candidate openly during the election, it would seem suspicious and this might have negative consequences. For example, the government might not approve a Gulf-funded charity project in his village. 14 Both offline and online discussions on Cambodian politics are limited due to the regime's surveillance system. Local leaders, such as village chiefs, but also religious specialists regularly survey social media and look for oppositional activities in the offline sphere (Jack et al., 2021;Pall & Pérez, 2021). 15 This makes expressing a critical opinion regarding Cambodian politics risky for Salafis (or anyone for that matter).
It is also impossible to classify Cambodian Salafis according to the three-tier typologies based on the transnational Salafi authorities they respect and follow. Most of them read books, follow social media sites, and regularly listen to the lectures of multiple ′ulama′ whose stances regarding politics might be very different. 16 For example, a Cambodian Salafi ustaz might respect and follow the Kuwaiti ′Uthman al-Khamis, who falls into the category of purist in Wiktorowicz's typology and would be a loyalist according to Wagemakers (Wagemakers, 2017;Wiktorowicz, 2006). At the same time, he might be an enthusiastic reader of ′Aid al-Qarni who was part of the Saudi Sahwa movement and an avid listener of Ismail Lutfi Japakiya's Malay lectures from Yala, Thailand. 17 Both of them would fall into the category of politicos.
For its part, jihadi Salafism has never really taken root in Cambodia. The only transnational jihad-related incident was the 2002 October Bali bombing, whose mastermind, Riduan Isamuddin alias Asha′ri's, allegedly hid in the country. This incident led to the expulsion of several Middle Eastern teachers and the closing of the Saudi-supported Umm al-Qura Islamic high school (Pall & Pérez, 2020). 18 Looking into the Cambodian Salafis' attitude toward larger society and modes of engagement with, it is a more fruitful approach to classify them. Perfecting one's purity of belief and ritual practices is at the core of Salafi ideology (Gauvain 2012). This also generates a discourse that describes the world through the constant struggle of the realm of iyman (belief) and taghut, which covers the realm of corruption and unbelief, everything that defies the purity of the rulings of Islam (Pall, 2018).
Salafis shield themselves from the realm of taghut by applying the concept of alwala wa'l-bara' (loyalty to God, Islam, and Muslims, and disavowal of everything else). It expresses the Salafi desire to remain in the domain of uncorrupted Islam and distance themselves from everything else (Wagemakers, 2008). For most Salafis, alwala wa'l-bara' dictates their social behavior, while a minority brings the concept to the domain of politics and armed struggle. In Cambodia, the latter has no relevance, while the first one is interpreted in relation to what extent one can interact with non-Salafi Muslims and non-Muslims.
The interpretations of Gulf-based Salafi authorities such as Ibn Baz, Salih bin Fauzan 19 (Wagemakers, 2008), and ′Uthman al-Khamis 20 of the concept of al-wala wa'l-bara' in the social domain emphasize the prohibition of greeting unbelievers in their religious holidays, resembling to them and adopting their customs. They also stress the necessity to hate the non-Muslims, although they add that this still means that they must be treated well and committing injustice against them is forbidden.
This interpretation of al-wala wa'l-bara' would presuppose extreme social isolation, especially in a non-Muslim majority context. Thus, to apply it as a useful medium between the religious and the social world needs the interpretation of individual Salafis that suits the social context where they operate and their own mental disposition. The most difficult part of the application of al-wala wa'l-bara' in the 17 Ismail Lutfi Japakiyya is perhaps the most influential Salafi authority in Thailand. He is very popular among Cambodian Muslims who understand Malay. Several Cambodian Salafis received their education at Yala Islamic University, and many of them are deeply influenced by Lutfi, as he is commonly referred to. See Liow (2010) and Salae (2017, esp. 119-144, 173-182 and 241-257). 18 No Cambodian Muslims traveled to Syria since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 to join one of the jihadi groups. 19 https:// www. youtu be. com/ watch?v= eMPdk SJGmhA 20 Al-Khamis, one of the most prominent Kuwaiti Salafi scholars, is exceptionally frequent in social media and YouTube appearances. He lately became one of the most influential Middle Eastern Islamic authorities among Southeast Asians. See his lecture on al-wala wa'l-bara': https:// www. youtu be. com/ watch? app= deskt op&v= YK0Z9 5MfVik social world is the tension between preserving one's purity and at the same time spreading Salafism among non-Salafi Muslims and non-Muslims. This tension informs my proposition for an alternative method to classify Salafism.
Here, I suggest imagining Salafis on a continuum regarding the ways they deal with al-wala wa'l-bara'. On the left end of the continuum are those who place enormous emphasis on the purity of their own belief and ritual performance, hence largely avoiding engagement with people whose beliefs and lifestyles are different from their own. On the right end of the continuum are those who strive to spread Salafi Islam above all else and, therefore, go to considerable lengths to reach out to members of the Muslim community and beyond whose beliefs and practices might be very different from their own. Most Salafis in Cambodia would be somewhere along the continuum and rarely at any of the extremes. Below, I present three ethnographic case studies about Salafis, who can be placed on different points along this continuum.

Case study 1
Ustaz Qadir, an aspiring scholar from Kampong Chhnang province, is closer to the left end of the continuum. He is in his early thirties and teaches in one of the Salafi boarding schools of the province, and in his spare time, he preaches to the men who recently converted to Salafism in the Khum Cheung Kreav commune and the surrounding villages.
In several villages in the area, people were members of the Community of Imam San until the mid-2000s when they started to abandon this tradition for the Salafi interpretation of Sunni Islam. The conversion happened due to the appearance of Salafi educational institutions such as the Abu Bakar Center in Kampong Tralach district in Kampong Chhnang and other smaller schools. These schools provided free or very cheap and relatively good quality education; therefore, the parents preferred to send their children to these institutions. Soon, the children acquired a decent knowledge of Arabic and insight into the Salafi interpretation of Islam, which made them able to convince their families that the path of the Imam San is wrong, and that Salafism represents true Islam. 21 According to other accounts, the main triggers of conversion were the promise of development projects and the fact that several influential families accepted Salafism. The latter then influenced other villagers to convert. 22 21 Series of interviews with the inhabitants of the converted villages in Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia, 10-11 February 2022. 22 Interview with a former village chief, Khum Cheung Kreav, Cambodia, 10 February 2022. Individual conversion in Cambodia from one Islamic school of thought to another rarely happens. Suchconversions usually occur en masse, i.e., entire families, village subdivisions, or villages. As Pall and Pérez (2020) explain, "conversion happens mostly when someone with authority becomes interested in the teachings of Salafī Islam. He then approaches the heads of households and tries to convince them that Salafī Islam is the correct form of Islam. If they agree, their families automatically will be considered Salafī, as their wives and children have no authority to differ on religious matters (Pall and Pérez 2020: 247-248)." One may ask whether Salafism would be sustainable if external funding were to dry up. This could be examined only if this would actually happen. Yet, one might expect that the villagers would remain on the Salafi path even in case of lack of external donations because many of the families are densely connected to other Salafi com-Ustaz Qadir went to Indonesia to study in an Islamic boarding high school. As he described it, an ustaz from Indonesia came to visit the villages that converted away from Imam San to pick up interested and talented students. He was one of those who received a scholarship to cover his studies and stay in Indonesia, where he spent seven years before returning to Cambodia.
Upon returning, he got a job as a teacher at the Abu Bakar center and was also entrusted by the head of his village (hakim) to give courses to the new converts in usul al-din, fiqh, Qur'an recitation, and the Arabic language. In addition to teaching, he is the main source of religious counseling in the village, and therefore, often, his advice is sought by individuals who need his views regarding Islamic matters.
Ustaz Qadir lives his life between the boarding school where he works, his home, and the small school established in the village for religious education and instruction of the locals. He rarely goes out even to the nearby towns or villages where the inhabitants are non-Muslim. Ustaz Qadir told me when I interviewed him that to complete his journey in this world successfully, he must make every effort to preserve and perfect his purity of belief and practice; then, as a teacher, he could help others do that. For this reason, he avoids anything that would distract him, such as young women in light clothing, music, and non-Islamic religious symbols and practices. Hence, he somewhat isolates himself socially. 23 He even refuses to take a position in the country's Islamic bureaucracy because he is afraid that he would be exposed to un-Islamic religious practices common among the followers of the shafi′i madhab, such as maulud celebrations.
One of the rare occasions when Ustaz Qadir mingles with non-Muslims and Muslims whom he considers as innovators, such as the Imam San, is when he practices his only passion which is not strictly connected to religion: football. He plays on the village team and participates in the regional championships. Yet, as he explained, after a football match, conversations are mostly about the game; therefore, there is little chance for his faith to be contaminated. 24 To sum up, Ustaz Qadir's focus is to create a space for himself and for his disciples where pure Islam can be preserved and practiced, which is sealed as much as possible from the influences of non-Muslims and non-Salafi Muslims. The way to do this is to reorganize one's social relationships around those who have a similar mindset and minimize interactions with the outside world. In Ustaz's Qadir case, the result is that he does very little public proselytization to a general Muslim audience, and most of his da′wa and teaching activities are limited to those who are already Salafis. He is a fervent reader of classical scholars such as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and Middle Eastern ′ulama' such as al-Albani, Ibn Baz, and Salih al-Fawzan. He interprets their stance on al-wala wa'l-bara' rather literally.

Case study 2
Ustaz Qadir's attitude stands in almost diametrical opposition to another Salafi preacher whom I encountered within the northeastern city of Battambang, Vary. Unlike Qadir, Vary does not claim the title ustaz, but considers himself a da′i (preacher) as he does not have a similar religious education as Ustaz Qadir and considers outreach to Muslims and non-Muslims his main activity.
Vary's mother is a Chvea Muslim woman, and his father has Chinese origins and converted to Islam when he married his mother. Vary described his parents as not strictly religious. They rarely pray and live a life similar to the Cambodian majority, including drinking alcohol. Vary himself found Islam after encounters with Jehova Witnesses, then Buddhism, a religion which he practiced and of which he has profound knowledge. He found Islam after meeting one of the prominent Salafi ustaz in Battambang, who convinced him that Islam is the truth during a series of conversations. 25 A period of learning about Islam and studying Arabic followed the encounter with the ustaz. Today, Vary considers himself a Salafi who applies the minute details of the scripture in his life but has a very forgiving approach to others.
Vary decided to give up his professional aspirations to become a designer for the sake of religious preaching after nearly dying with a lung infection. He started to travel the countryside with a mobile library on his motorbike trailer to reach out to people. The library consisted of books both about general knowledge and literature and about Islam. While his aim was to strengthen and purify the faith of Muslims, several Buddhists, especially university students, became interested in his activities; some of them even converted to Islam. In time, several young Salafis, most of them graduates in Saudi Arabia, joined him to expand the Salafi da′wa among Battambang's Muslims.
This network of young Salafis established an Islamic center located on the outskirts of Battambang city in a multi-story house led by Vary. The ground floor provides space for a library which consists mainly of Islamic books and serves as a space for studying and discussions. The floors above serve as student dormitories for Muslim and non-Muslim students alike, while there is a small café on the rooftop where discussion seminars and religious lessons are held. The center serves as a platform for the followers of the network who are born Muslims and converts who often casually hang out there, use the library, or come to a discussion event or religious lesson. While the members of the network never preach openly among non-Muslims, they hope that by living in the student dormitory and reading in the library, they will have a better understanding of Islam that would help dispelling stereotypes or even convert. 26 Vary's aim is to reinvigorate the Salafi da′wa which lost impetuous among young Muslim professionals and university students. These social groups are not ready to dedicate their entire life to purify their religious beliefs and practices. Rather, they are looking for ways to match urban, middle-class lifestyles and their sense of belonging to Islam. 27 Most of them, for example, are very fond of Korean pop culture, and their friendship networks are not necessarily composed of Muslims only. Vary and the members of his network believe that Salafism is perfectly compatible with the lifestyle of these young people.
The motto of Vary is that "Allah loves Cambodia," and it illustrates well Vary's ideas. The core claim of the network is that Salafis did not only bring pure Islam from the Middle East but also wrongly associated it with a lifestyle imported from the Gulf and which is unfit for Cambodian society. As Vary put it, "Salafis want to force Arab style of dress, ways of greeting, and ways of interacting with society on Cambodians. Yet, these do not have to do anything with Islam. The galabiyya is not prescribed by the Sunna, for example." He complained that most Salafis see Cambodia as the Land of Unbelievers and urge their followers to detach from it culturally.
He proposes instead to apply the rulings of Salafism within the Cambodian context and consider it as a building element of Cambodian society, not something foreign. For example, Salafis widely consider music forbidden, and they suggest instead listening to Qur'an recitations for amusement. 28 Vary realizes though that most young people will not be satisfied with that; therefore, the prohibition would do more harm than good. He tells his followers to avoid music if they can and listen instead to the recitation of Khmer poetry. If they cannot do that, they should listen to Cambodian or classical music. Vary writes poems in Khmer about God in a traditional style that can be used as a substitute for music.
The center also published a Qur'an translation in Khmer where borrowed words from Malay and Arabic, such as Surga Paradise, are replaced with Pali and Sanskrit vocabulary, something condemned by many Cambodian Salafis and non-Salafis alike as using terminologies of polytheist religions. Vary defends the endeavor by saying that when the Qur'an is translated into English, a language that Salafis are fond of using and teaching in their schools on a much higher level than Cambodian public schools, they use the words "heaven" and "paradise," something that can be found in the Bible. Furthermore, the origins of the Malay Surga also come from Sanskrit. 29 The center also organizes study trips for Muslims to Angkorean temples, arguing that nothing in the Sunna indicates that someone must detach from his or her traditions and historical heritage. Salafis usually advise avoiding these temples, arguing that they are places of polytheism (shirk) from which Muslims must dissociate 27 Series of interviews with young professionals and university students, Phnom Penh, January-February 2022. 28 Most Salafis consider music prohibited. They cite a number of hadith which, according to them proves this. See the Fatwa of the late grand mufti of Saudi Arabia Abd al-Aziz bin Baz on the matter: https:// binbaz. org. sa/ fatwas/ 17415/ ‫-مكح‬ ‫-يناغالا‬ ‫;ىقيسوملاو‬ Abu Khadeeja Abdul Wahid, "The Islamic Ruling on Music and Singing-Ibn Bāz, Al-Albāni, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Al-Qayyim, and the Four Madhhabs", https:// abukh adeej ah. com/ ruling-on-music-and-singi ng-ibn-baz-albani-ibn-taymi yyah/; The influential Malaysian scholar, Dr. Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, the mufti of Perlis belongs to the minority of Salafis who permit music with certain conditions. He only considers music that has morally corrupting influence prohibited: https:// www. youtu be. com/ watch? app= deskt op&v= 7Xdm7 5qIGf4 29 Interview, Battambang, 12 February 2022.
themselves. Yet, the members of the network argue that the purpose of these visits is not worship, and most of these temples are not used for worship anymore for a long time; therefore, they can be legally visited from an Islamic point of view. Nevertheless, some of the followers of Vary and his network expressed their doubt about whether these visits contradict the scripture.
A follower of the group drew my attention to a number of fatwas (non-binding legal opinions) from Salafi homepages about entering non-Muslim places of worship, whereby Salafi religious authorities generally either forbid it or consider it makruh (detestable). 30 The latter camp argues that if it is unavoidable or necessary, Muslims can enter temples, churches, or synagogues. 31 Yet, even if the individual takes the latter opinion, it remains ambiguous whether going to Angkorwat to study the history and traditions of Cambodia is necessary or unavoidable. The members of the network usually go to these visits, admitting that they are not sure whether what they do is Islamic or not. They feel that there are no credible Islamic scholars in Cambodia whom they can consult on such matters, and the Salafi authorities in the Gulf do not necessarily understand the Cambodian social context.
Beyond striving to adapt Salafism in a Cambodian context, Vary often organizes interfaith activities, such as camps together with committed Buddhists. Another type of activity is events for students, both Muslim and non-Muslims with successful Cambodians, such as winners of student Olympics, to motivate them. Vary hopes that by doing this, Islam will appear in a positive light among non-Muslims and Muslims who do not practice their religion, and the former perhaps will convert at one point, while the latter will start practicing their religion seriously.
As we can see, to do da′wa in the wider Cambodian Muslim society and reach out to non-Muslim is Vary's main concern. Instead of social isolation and distancing himself from the Cambodian sociocultural context to preserve the purity of his faith that we observed about Ustaz Qadir, Vary spends most of his time preaching among non-Salafi Muslims and with outreach activities among non-Muslims. His application of al-wala wa'l-bara' differs markedly from that of Ustaz Qadir. Vary does not regard the concept as invalid, but for him, alwala wa'l-bara' targets certain attributes of non-Muslims, such as their lack of belief in Islam and not their whole being, which is also created by God. Also, for him, imitation of non-believers would be if Muslims adopt their rituals and specific religious dresses, such as the attire of Buddhist monks. Vary's concept of al-wala wa'l-bara' reflects his attitude to Middle Eastern Salafi scholars. He reads them and deeply respects them, but believes that they do not know the Cambodian and the broader Southeast Asia context; therefore, their opinions may not be entirely valid outside of their societies. Most Cambodian Salafis are between these two extremes, represented by Ustaz Qadir and Vary.

Case study 3
Ustaz Abdul Latif's life trajectory and disposition are typical of Cambodian Salafis and represent the middle of the continuum. Born in a Muslim family in Kampong Cham province, he studied in the country's most renowned Tabligh center in Phum Trea village (today, Tbung Khmum province). In his teenage and early adult years, he became a committed Tabligh member, often going to khuruj to other provinces of Cambodia and abroad.
According to his account, he met an ustaz in Kampong Cham who, although not a Salafi, appeared to be critical to the Tablighis. He encouraged the young Abdul Latif to widen the scope of his readings beyond the limited Tablighi material. Abdul Latif followed the advice of this ustaz and joined the religious lessons of other groups. He also borrowed books from them and read websites of other Islamic schools of thought. He came across a number of English and Arabic Salafi sites (he learned to read Arabic in Trea and English by himself), and he became attracted to these websites' clear and logical way of presenting religious matters. When he explained to me the reasons for his conversion from Tabligh, he repeated the usual Salafi criticism toward Tabligh, i.e., their system of khuruj, which they do systematically, becomes an act of worship which is not in the scripture, and that Tablighis do not read and understand the Text, and that they are intertwined with the traditionalists who regularly commit bida′ such as performing Sufi rituals. 32 Abdul Latif soon became attached to the Salafi circles, whose members helped him to acquire a scholarship to study the Khmer language and literature in Phnom Penh. As he told me, while Tablighis rarely studied at universities at that time, and most often did not even go to high school, Salafis advocated studying and getting jobs in the public or private sector. With the Khmer language, he became a teacher after graduation and gained employment first in government schools and then the schools of SRIH. Currently, he works at one of the Kuwait-sponsored boarding schools on the outskirts of the southern city of Kampot.
He believes that complete social isolation is not the way to preserve purity, as the companions of the Prophet and the Rightly Guided Caliphs also frequently interacted with non-Muslims out of necessity. He also thinks that Salafis should not shun non-Salafis, since many of them eventually, such as himself, can be convinced that Salafism represents pure and uncorrupted-form Islam. For example, he still sometimes visits Phum Trea and even gives lectures there on topics which do not incite disagreements between Salafis and Tabligh members. In the village where he married and now resides near Kampot, he sometimes goes to the maulid celebrations without participating in those rituals which he believes 32 Interview, Kampot, 5 February 2022. About the Salafi criticism of Tabligh, a vast literature exists online. See, for example, https:// islam qa. info/ en/ answe rs/ 8674/ jamaat-al-tabli gh-pros-and-cons. Salafis in Cambodia criticize them also because of the movement's closeness to the traditional shafii community and their keenness to celebrate the maulid and even perform pilgrimages to the graves of Saints. Series of interviews in Cambodia between May 2017 and February 2022. to be bida′. He believes that maulid is a social event, and it would look bad if he were not to share some food with fellow villagers. The positive side is that privately he can discuss with some of the participants after the event why maulid should not be performed.
Since he is currently the deputy director of his school, Ustaz Abdul Latif is frequently in contact with Cambodian authorities, who are mostly non-Muslims. For example, whenever a new project, financed by SRIH, is completed, he has to stand together with mainly Buddhist employees of the ministry of religious affairs who are tasked to lead the handover ceremony of the given school building, orphanage, or clinic. Privately, he has a good personal relationship with many of these individuals. As he explained, they rarely, if ever, talk about religious matters, and he is in no way influenced by their religious practices. These good contacts are crucial to preserve the autonomy of the Salafi da′wa. He mentioned that in a nearby village in Kampot province, where Salafis failed to have cordial relationships with the Khmer municipal officials, Salafi religious lessons were banned following a request from the village head who is close to the Tabligh. If Salafis had been on good terms with the local authorities, this would not have happened.
Ustaz Abdul Latif represents the middle part of the continuum and perhaps reflects the attitude of the majority of Cambodian Salafis. He is keen to interact with broader society to a certain degree; he fosters good relationships with non-Muslims and participates in the rituals and events which are not normally approved by the standards of Salafis. Yet, he does all these out of necessity to preserve the autonomy of the Salafi community, and with certain conditions. His attitude matches that of his employer, SRIH, which is active in several domains in the public sphere, both in its home base in Kuwait and abroad, in order to promote Salafism. Therefore, it needs to adopt a flexible approach toward al-wala wa'l-bara'.

Analysis and conclusion
Classifying Cambodian Salafis into quietist, politico, and jihadi makes little sense, as we can see in the above discussion. If we were to apply Wiktorowicz's typology, almost all Cambodian Salafis would be politicos as they simply must participate in political activities, at the very least campaigning for the candidates of the ruling party during elections. It is more fruitful to examine individual Salafis based on their discourses and attitudes toward issues that concern Cambodian Muslims and to place them on a continuum based on their openness toward larger society and the local sociocultural context. As we can see, the most contentious issue among Cambodian Salafis is the way they interact with non-Salafi Muslims and the non-Muslim majority.
The validity of typologies based on Wiktorowicz's classification might be questionable in other cases as well. For example, Malaysia, where Muslims constitute a majority of 63.5% according to the 2020 census, 33 is a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, and debates among Salafis over the role and rights of the ruler and the Muslims' obligation toward him occur only from time to time. These debates are usually temporary and are far from being the most important issue on which Salafis disagree. Mostly they are connected to specific political events and/or turbulences.
There is a myriad of often overlapping Salafi networks in the country and employing the continuum described in this article helps make sense of them. On the left end of the continuum are those groups and individuals who tend to isolate themselves from the rest of society. They are often referred to as Madkhalis due to their contacts with the Saudi scholar Rabi′ al-Madkhali and his disciples (Malik 2018). Yet, the core of the discourse of most of these groups is not the ruler, unlike their Middle Eastern counterparts, but ritual purity. There are the so-called Tajdidis (renewers) at the other end of the continuum, whose most iconic figure is Dr. Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, the mufti of the northern Malaysian state, Perlis. His main effort is to make the Salafi doctrine and method a constituent part of a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. 34 Yet, this continuum might not be employable in other cases, where divisions are clearer between different Salafi networks, such as the case in Kuwait or Jordan (Pall, 2020;Wagemakers, 2016). Thus, this article argues that instead of setting up a grand typology for all Salafis on the globe, it is more fruitful to conduct thorough empirical research in each national or local context, scrutinize the intra-Salafi debates, and examine the differences in their attitudes to broader society and try to set up a typology that reflects the movement's local characteristics. At the same time, it might make sense to employ a classification stemming from Wiktorowicz's approach to discuss the global authorities of Salafism. Among these, the stance toward the rulers and the permissibility of political participation are still crucial questions. However, we only should note that it should be recognized that the divisions of these global authorities do not necessarily reflect the fragmentation of Salafis at the local level.
Funding Open access funding provided by Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 838474.
Data availability N/A. I used ethnographic data based on participant observations and anonymized semistructured interviews.

Declarations
Ethical approval The execution of the research, including data collection and analysis, has been approved by the ethics committees of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the European Commission's Horizon 2020 program. All research participants gave their explicit consent to use the information they provided for research purposes.

Competing interests The author declares no competing interests.
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