The struggle for Salafism in the Egyptian Transition (2011-2013)

Salafism was the religious language that dominated Egypt’s aborted political transition in the wake of the fall of Mubarak. The leading and most vocal political actors of the moment all mobilized strands of Salafism in a a religious fight for legitimacy against each other: the Salafi Call and its political party al-Nour (with its internal divisions), Hazim Abu Isma’il and his revolutionary Salafis, and even the Muslim Brotherhood, whose religious references had earlier been distinct from Salafi ones. Why was that the case? And how does this shed light on some of the transition’s dynamics (and eventual shortcomings)?

About the speaker

Stéphane Lacroix is an associate professor of political science at Sciences Po and a researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI). His work deals with religion and politics, with a focus on the Gulf and Egypt. He is the author of “Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia” (Harvard University Press, 2011), “Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change” (Cambridge University Press, 2015, with Bernard Haykel and Thomas Hegghammer), “Egypt’s Revolutions: Politics, Religion, Social Movements” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, with Bernard Rougier) and “Revisiting the Arab Uprisings: The Politics of a Revolutionary Moment” (Oxford University Press, 2018, with Jean-Pierre Filiu). Watch the recording here