11h-13h > New Perspectives on the Early Transnational History of the salafiyya

New Perspectives on the Early Transnational History of the salafiyya

jeu 13 juil 23
11h-13h
Déméter 021

Abstract:

One of the most striking developments in the research about Muslim intellectual history since the 19th century is the changing significance of the concept of salafiyya in recent decades. While it is largely absent from many classical studies (e.g. Albert Hourani's Arabic Thought, 1962, and Nikki Keddie's biography of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, 1972), salafiyya has become the most central concept for describing religiously motivated reformist currents. While it had been used uncritically over several decades, it has recently been questioned by Henri Lauzière (The Making of Salafism in the 20th Century, 2016) who argued that the concept of salafiyya was not used by the reformers themselves, but was rather coined by Louis Massignon and Henri Laoust in the 1920s, whose use of the term only later spread among Muslim authors. It would thus seem that the term salafiyya makes sense only for later trends which evolved after the Second World War into what is today well-known as Salafism. On the other hand, however, the question may be asked why, of all notions, salafiyya so easily caught on for the description of developments since the mid-19th century. This panel therefore aims at investigating into the early uses of salaf and related concepts on a broad basis of sources and from a transnational angle in order not only to shed light on the early history of Islamic modernism, but also to overcome the previous focus on the Egyptian trinity of reform, al-Afghānī – ʿAbduh – Rashīd Riḍā. 

Convenor:
Rainer Brunner, CNRS/LEM 

Pieter Coppens, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Was the modern term 'Salafi' a Damascene invention?

Umar Ryad, University of Leuven
al-Manār's Salafi Circles in al-Ḥaramayn

Rainer Brunner, CNRS/LEM, Paris
Between 'salaf' and 'ahl al-bayt': Conceptual Approaches to Reform in Sunnite and Shiʿite Journals