Moderate Salafism and the Challenge of De-Radicalization: The Case of Pakistan.

• Author: Amin, Husnul
• Position: Essay

Introduction

Salafism, generally described as Wahhabism (named after the 18th century preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab/1703-1792), is a Sunni sect that normally advocates abolition of popular religious practices such as visitation to shrines and tombs (Commins, 2006; For more about the term Wahhabi, see Encyclopedia Britannica; Dillon, 2009). Abd al-Wahab initiated his revivalist activity in the Najd region, mainly drawing inspiration from the teachings of Medieval theologian Ibne Taymiyyah. The British also adopted this term and expanded its use in the Middle East. In the US, the term "Wahhabi" was used in the 1950s to refer to "puritan Muslims." However, Salafists today would not like to be called Wahhabis (see "The King of Arabia," Life Magazine, 31 May 1943, p.72; Wiktorowicz, 2006). The state of Saudi Arabia is considered to be the main financial sponsor of Abd al-Wahhab's teachings around the globe (Glasse, 2001). The phenomenal growth in Wahhabism is reported to have become possible due to the official patronage by Saudi Arabia through petro-dollars during the 1970s (El-Fadl, 2005). The other key contributing factor in the Salafi expansion is the Khomeini Revolution in Iran which became the "other" of its ideology (ibid).

Salafism and/or Wahhabism, which are used as synonyms in problematic ways, are key terms widely used both in academic scholarship and popular media. Salafism is more often associated with all different kinds of Islamist movements (and thus with violence and militancy) across the globe which may or may not be ideologically rooted in Salafism. In popular perception, Salafism invokes an image of a male person sporting long beard and wearing long white dress. Likewise, a "typical Salafist" woman is supposed to be covered in black dress. Their main Islamist career is generally thought to be committing suicide attacks on their opponents (see proceedings of the AJCS conference on Salafism in the Arab world; see also, Ali, n.d). Due to such portrayals and media constructions, Salafism has been groomed into an overarching category deployed inaccurately to refer to "any Islamic movement that has an apparent tendency toward misogyny, militant-ism, extremism, or strict and literal interpretation of the Quran and Hadith" (DeLong-Bas, 2004, pp. 123-124).

A handful of studies have critically examined the interchangeable use of Salafism with terrorism and ultraconservatism (Chabkoun, 2014). An example of academic revisit is the international conference organized by the Al-Jazeera Center for Studies (AJCS). Conference proceedings indicated Salafist varieties in the Arab world and thus contested the confinement of the Salafi movement to a singular social expression. The delegates agreed on the non-singular manifestation and the existence of a multiplicity of forms within the Salafist phenomenon. Pakistan and any other South Asian examples, however, were not taken up during the conference. Ahmad Ban (2013) refers to different social trajectories of Salafism in Egypt that "branch out into a diversity of Salafist movements, which intersect, proliferate, coexist and compete with each other at times" (also see here Lakatos, 2014 on the Arab Spring in Egypt). These include charity and proselytization movements, political organizations, militant groups, and youth groups (ibid).

To overcome the limitations (geographical focus excluding Pakistan) of previous studies conducted on Salafism, this research mainly focuses on the empirical example of Pakistan and thus bridges the gap in academic literature. Theoretically, the research deviates from the widespread security-driven approaches to the study of Salafism in Pakistan. This departure enables us to take a humanistic angle towards out research subjects and prevents us from falling prey to essentialism.

After a brief introduction, the remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section one presents a brief review of literature and an analysis of the gaps in academic scholarship on the subject. Section two deals with the description of the overall methodology of the paper, research arguments, and the research questions that guided my enquiry. The section that follows provides an analysis of the prevailing organizational diversity within the Salafist/Ahle Hadith Movement (AHM) in Pakistan. Before the conclusion, a section is devoted to an analysis of the relationship between Salafism and de-radicalization efforts in Pakistan.

Literature review

A strand of Salafism is accused of being the main source of global terrorism (Haider, 2013); cause of disunity in the Muslim community due to their takfiri extremist views vis-a-vis other Muslim sects (Commins, 2009; Mouzahem, 2013). In Kepel's view (2004), wahhabism is an ultra-conservative Saudi branch of Salafism. The principles that unify diverse Salafi trajectories include: "method for applying religious beliefs to contemporary issues and problems"; the "strict adherence to the concept of tawhid (the oneness of God); and, the ardent rejection of a role for human reason, logic, and desire" (Wiktorowicz, 2006, p. 207). Such an interpretative approach leads to a tyrannical absolutism leaving little space for an "Islamic pluralism" (ibid). Scholars such as Hamid Algar (2002: 46-49) create a link between wahhabism and Salafism through the following common threads: neither pay attention to developments after the first two generations; both reject mysticism (sufism), and both disapprove strict following of the four Islamic legal schools. For Olivier Roy, the core concern of Salafism is "deculturation--they seek to strip Islam as practiced into its pristine elements by jettisoning folk customs and delinking Islam from any cultural context" (Roy 2004, p.29). Thus, Salafis are assumed to be expanding the boundaries of its community by first "eliminating culturally produced innovations" (ibid). According to scholar Christopher M. Blanchard (2008), Wahhabism refers to "a conservative Islamic creed centered in and emanating from Saudi Arabia," while Salafiyya is "a more general puritanical Islamic movement that has developed independently at various times and in various places in the Islamic world" (p. 2). Others call wahhabism a stricter, Saudi form of Salafism. For Lauziere, the difference between the Modernist Salafi and the Puritans is historical, and may be traced back to late 19th Century. For the Progressive/Modernist Salafists, the demands of modernity superceded the demands of purity and piety. However, it is noteworthy that among the Salafi of all varieties, technological innovation has always been less problematic than religious innovation.

Saudi oil-export financing helped strengthen the language of Salafism during the 60s and 70s which almost converged wahhabism and Salafism to an indistinguishable point (El-Fadl, 2005). The rebranding of wahhabism into Salafism was premised on the assumption that with the former label it may not be easy to spread its message (see this discussion in Dillon 2009). It is worth-mentioning that the local conditions in Pakistan too were more favorable to host the Salafist ideology and support its relatively speedy growth in various geographical locations. Like any other social movements, in Pakistan too, Salafism is bound to operate within the emerging sociopolitical and economic contexts that the new opportunities present. Unlike most other Muslim societies, the religious sector in Pakistan is privileged to operate in a relatively autonomous sphere through the institutions of mosques and madrassas (schools of Islamic religious education). The flow of funds directed for the construction of mosques/madrassas to financing of its current and development expenditures are less regulated. This autonomy provides greater freedom as well as an open space to diverse religious ideologies and groups to expand its influence across the Pakistani society. Salafi institutions have flourished tremendously in the last three decades (see Zahab, 2009).

While conducting my fieldwork, I noticed that in Pakistan, the Salafists prefer to be called Salafisor Ahle Hadith, rather than being named wahhabis. Therefore, in this article, Salafism and Ahle Hadith will be used interchangeably instead of wahhabism being applicable to all varieties of the Salafi phenomenon in Pakistan.

Gaps in Literature

The literature that is critical of the role of religion in public life assumes that human behavior that is guided by religion leads to unimaginable mayhem and terror. By implication, Islam is a religion which is inherently violent religion and an existential threat to the West: "Islam has bloody borders" (Huntington, p.34). A distinction is made between a type of religious terrorism and a secular one. Secular terrorism is said to be committed in the name of secular or modern collective concepts like nationalism, communism, Nazism etc. The result of this essentialist approach is the view that religious terrorists are inflexible, they lack political pragmatism and are not ready to negotiate their positions, and they want a new world order so that they can cause unprecedented destruction to humanity. "Today terrorists do not want a seat at the table, they want to destroy the table and everyone sitting at it" (Woolsey, 2000, p.2). Scholars are suspicious of this essentialist approach, "ideological commitments arise from (collective) actions, rather than actions following from ideological commitments, as interest and belief are changed by group" (Feree and Miller, 1985, p.52, pp. 41-45). Moreover, the distinction between Islamic and secular terrorism is highly problematic both conceptually and empirically. Likewise, the behavior of those "who are termed terrorists and seculars is diverse and indistinguishable" (Gunning and Jackson, 2011). This approach fails to study nationalist projects--in their fight against imperialism--of Islamic militant organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaida and is not able...