Talk:Salafi movement

Persistent undoing of edits in the Sweden section

I have better things to do with my time than creating a Wikipedia account and becoming an "editor". The user 1Kwords has persistently and spitefully undone a legitimate edit of the section on Sweden, hiding behind Wikipedia policies of one form or another. The claim "Salafists in Sweden are supported financially by Saudi Arabia and Qatar" is utterly devoid of evidence. Nothing! "It was said in a newspaper article so it must be true because a newspaper article is the source in this case" is the sum of the position evident from 1Kwords' persistent, petty undoing of edits. First of all 1Kwords claimed that "Magnus Ranstorp said it" - NOT TRUE. Next, 1Kwords attempted to protest that Magnus Ranstorp is an "expert" (irrelevant). If anyone anywhere in the world wants to make the claim that Saudi Arabia or Qatar financially supports any Salafis anywhere, let them bring one of two things: either a verified document proving the transfer of money, or a person who would swear in court on oath 'yes we received money from so-and-so'. Failing that, "a newspaper said it" is a pathetic, untenable position. This whole farce serves to underline Wikipedia's junk status, and that Wiki editors are pretentious pedants who hide behind absurd policies and use said policies to pursue an Islam-hating agenda.

An article by some crazy "NewageIslam" website states: "Saudi Arabia has funded the construction of some mosques in Sweden [where? name them!]. There had also been rising number of Salafists in the country." Yet again, the claim of "financial support" is made and....there is no evidence for it. None, nothing, nil.

Revert discussion

Since the edit summary is not for discussion, here the summary in case someone has an urge to discuss this:

religious blogpages do not fall under the category of WP:RS and an explanation of the Salafs is Template:Off topic except you want to suggest that there is a relation between Salafs and Salafis, but this directly contradicts the Wikipedia guidlines and the purpose of an encyclopedia

VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 13:25, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

"Salafi Muslims oppose bid'a (religious innovation) and support the implementation of sharia (Islamic law)."

I'm confused about this statement. Islam as a whole is opposed to religious innovation; this is not unique to the Salafi movement. Neither is the implementation of shari'ah. This sentence gives no useful information whatsoever. 21fafs (talk) 13:20, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Article Short Summary

@Shadowwarrior8 Greetings, maybe it is better to discuss this here, as the limitations on the edit summary can easily lead to misunderstandings.

First of all, I want to let you know that I respect your great improvements and edits on the article.

I do not insist on ading 'ultra' as a descriptor for 'conservative' in the short descriptions. However, if objected, I want to ensure it is rejected for good reasons. I see you point two points: 1) the term has a negative connotation 2) the term doesn't apply to all forms of the Salafi Movement.

I am inclined to reject the first reason as valid, because authors cannot consider misitnerpretations of terminology by laymen. 'Ultra conservate' are not to be understood as "transgressing" the conservative values, but rather sticking to a more conservative interpretations than other conservative parties. This seems to apply to at least some Salafi Movements.

The second arguement seems much better and Western academia might oversimplify the Salafism Movement, which has developed further in the last decades. However, do you think, if we understand 'ultra conservative' not in a bad manner but simply as analogous to other extrem forms of conservativism (for example Haredi Judaism), is not applicable to all forms of Salafism? For example, there are conservative movements in Turkey who are not as conservative as Salafism, yet conservative. Or would such movements already fall under the umbrella term "Salafism"?

I would give you the last word on taht matter. Since you greatly improved the article and shown a decent expertise on that matter, I think it is just reasonable to assume you know better than most editors. My dispute is merely with the possible misudnerstanding on 'ultra'. If you still say it is misleading, i won't edit war further on that.

with best regards VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 20:42, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I didnt notice this comment at first, but I shall soon give a response. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 23:45, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

1) "Ultra" certainly is a loaded label with negative connotations. These are some of the dictionary entries on the term "ultra":

- Cambridge Dictionary entry on "ultra":

"a person who has extreme political or religious opinions"

- Oxford Learner's Dictionaries entry on "ultra":

"a person who holds extreme views.."

- Merriam Webster dictionary entry on "ultra":

"extremist"

2) As such, it is not encyclopaedic at all to sweepingly describe Salafism (or any mainstream Islamic school of thought) with such contentious labels in the lede or shortdescription.

Look at Britannica Encyclopaedia's entry on Salafi movement:

"Salafi movement, broad set of Islamic movements that strive to emulate the practices of al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ (“the pious predecessors”).."

Nowhere does it simplistically describe it as "ultra-conservative", or other contentious labels.

3) Furthermore, it is not accurate to think that Salafism is a homogenously literalist or ultra-conservative school. There are several movements within Salafism, with each movement having diverse strands.

• ISBN: 9780190942441, Publisher: Oxford University Press, "Salafism in the Maghreb: Politics, Piety, and Militancy", Chapter 1:"Defining Salafism: Contexts and Currents":

"Salafism is a diverse and dynamic current within Islam that promotes itself as the purest, most authentic form of Islam, marked by an emulation of the prophet Muhammad’s contemporary companions, their followers, and the next two generations. Despite its pretentions to literalism and universalism, Salafism as a lived reality often incorporates local social contexts and customs."

You claimed that Hanbalis are a "conservative movement" and Salafis should be described as "ultra" to be distinguished from such movements. Firstly, Hanbali school is not a movement; it is one of the four main schools of Sunni jurisprudence. Secondly, distinguishing in short descriptions is only for similarly named page titles across different topics. It does not require a distinguishing between two differently named page titles in the same topic. Thirdly, Salafis may adopt more lenient positions than Hanbali school. For example, Hanbalis and many Shafi'is (and Hanafis in some situations) view that wearing niqab is obligatory for Muslim women. However, many Salafi scholars view that it is not obligatory for Muslim women to cover her face and hands.

As you said earlier, there are several conservative movements (or strands within those movements) which are more hardcore than Salafis on several social issues. Founder of Barelvi movement, Ahmed Riza Khan, forbade women from reading and writing. Some Deobandi strands also forbid women from getting advanced education in sciences and mathematics. If they are not labelled "ultra", how can Salafis be then labelled "ultra"? (No Salafi scholar has banned women from pursuing scientific education.)

Fact of the matter is that opinions of Salafi ulema on various social issues are diverse, and vary from lenient to ultra-conservative. It would be misleading to put them in varying boxes like "ultra-conservative", "hardline", "lenient", etc. That would be a category error.

4) Regarding Haredi Judaism, wikipedia page on this fundamentalist Jewish movement do not label it as "ultra-conservative". "Ultra-orthodox" is a common name in the English-language for the group and it is not used to describe Haredim without attribution. The page's body and lede clearly elaborates that the term is viewed as offensive by many Jews.

Christian fundamentalist sects like Puritans and Calvinists have not been labelled as "ultra-conservative" or "extremist" by wikipedia. Why then are Muslim religious movements being labelled with "ultra", "extremist", and other contentious terms? This is more of a demonstration of a white christian systemic bias within wikipedia, due to which Euro-centric political agendas and Islamophobic propaganda are proliferating across this encyclopaedia.

Furthermore, Salafism is very broad and is not analogous to Haredi or Calvanist movements. However many Anglosphere readers of the Western corporate press do not care about these nuances and are influenced by the stupid and hateful stereotypes of U.S. government war-propaganda. (which are designed to spread scaremongering amongst the Anglosphere public)

5) For more on how American war propaganda and U.S. corporate media have deployed boogeymen narratives against various Islamic schools and movements like Salafism, I shall quote some excerpts from an academic book:

QUOTE

"Then, through the 1980s and 1990s the word “fundamentalism” underwent a major connotative shift... journalists, politicians, and religion scholars began labeling any global religious movement that they saw as too political, too literalist, too opposed to Western hegemony, too outside the norms defined by liberal Christianity as “fundamentalist.”' ... the narratives that have taken hold about Islam and Salafism before and after 9/11 – from “Judeo-Christian America” to the “Clash of Civilizations,” from “Islamic fundamentalism” to the securitization of Salafism and “Radical Islam” – have created neuralgic responses that lead to general ignorance of Salafism and caricatured imaginings of the threat of the Salafi strand of Islam in America. ... Today, Salafism – whether it calls itself that or not, and it often does not – is an accessible and vibrant strand of Islam in America."

END QUOTE

QUOTE

"Reading these descriptions, you are left with the firm impression that to use the terms Salafism and Evangelicalism is to speak about coherent theological and behavioral communities of religious believers marching, more or less, in lock step in accordance with their interpretation of their sacred texts. On the other hand, just to dip your toes into the discussions among Salafis and among Evangelicals, even in a fairly delimited cultural space like America, is to discover a raging ferment of dispute and disagreement and manifest heterogeneity. Salafis who are ostensibly reading and citing the same texts and professedly using the same methods and interpretive assumptions reach radically different conclusions."

END QUOTE

QUOTE

As Yasir Qadhi, wearing his academic hat, puts it, “What you find, actually, is very, very diverse, contradictory, and competing claims of truth within the movement, to the extent that, at times, what separates these strands within Salafism is more significant than what unites them.”

END QUOTE

QUOTE

"Attempts to comprehensively taxonomize all of the different sub-groupings of Salafis and Evangelicals result in a sort of reductio ad absurdum... Think of all of the different flavors of Salafism we have seen in the preceding chapters: the paramosque devotional education of AlMaghrib; the African American Salafism that can have a polemical Madkhali mood or not; ... All of these people are ostensibly in the Salafi discourse, interpreting and applying the Qurʾan and Hadith and living within the bounds of American culture, but their inhabitations and interpretations of Salafism vary staggeringly.

END QUOTE

QUOTE

"The vast, vast majority that has been written about Salafism in the USA since 9/11 comes from this Security Studies genre of threat assessment, counterterrorism strategy, political analysis... Additionally, there is an ever-growing body of excellent scholarship on global Salafism, and even Salafism in Europe ... has begun to receive more careful, ethnographic, and nuanced academic analysis. Yet, in the USA, Security Studies remains the dominant paradigm for understanding and analyzing Salafism. ...
There are two core deficiencies in this Security Studies mode of analysis that, instead of just offering solid analysis and interpretation, transmuted it into another stereotyped American narrative about Islam and Salafism. .... In short, the securitization of studies of Salafism in the USA has contributed directly to the securitization of Salafism itself, framing the entire movement around questions of violence, terrorism, political ideology, and foreignness to Western sensibilities, instead of asking the questions about Salafi identity that Salafis themselves ask."

END QUOTE Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 05:40, 7 November 2024 (UTC)