TY - JOUR
T1 - Arrival of Legal Salafism and the Struggle for Recognition in Germany – Reflection and Adaptation Processes within the German Da’wa movement between 2001 and 2022
AU - Emmerich, Arndt
N1 - © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
PY - 2023/9/30
Y1 - 2023/9/30
N2 - The article investigates the transformation within a specific branch of German Salafism from a publicly-assertive da'wa (proselytizing) to a politically accommodating and legal advocacy movement. In doing so, a process analysis that focuses on internal and reflexive narrations among Salafi leaders and lay members, through a three year-long mosque-based ethnography (2018–2021) and textual analysis (2008–2022), is employed. Previous studies focused predominately on the “Salafi growth phase” (2005–2015) in Germany that is associated with the attraction of exclusive group boundaries, flat hierarchies and informal networks. Less research exists on the current “decline phase”, which has commenced a re-orientation and critical reflection on past strategies and new ways of civic engagement and legal pragmatism. By exploring this new phase, the article integrates a longitudinal dimension into conventional research protocols on contemporary Salafism. The paper concludes with a discussion on the converging struggles for recognition among Muslim and other religious minorities in Europe, while linking these transformations to domestic opportunity structures rather than transnational reconfigurations of so-called “global Salafism”.
AB - The article investigates the transformation within a specific branch of German Salafism from a publicly-assertive da'wa (proselytizing) to a politically accommodating and legal advocacy movement. In doing so, a process analysis that focuses on internal and reflexive narrations among Salafi leaders and lay members, through a three year-long mosque-based ethnography (2018–2021) and textual analysis (2008–2022), is employed. Previous studies focused predominately on the “Salafi growth phase” (2005–2015) in Germany that is associated with the attraction of exclusive group boundaries, flat hierarchies and informal networks. Less research exists on the current “decline phase”, which has commenced a re-orientation and critical reflection on past strategies and new ways of civic engagement and legal pragmatism. By exploring this new phase, the article integrates a longitudinal dimension into conventional research protocols on contemporary Salafism. The paper concludes with a discussion on the converging struggles for recognition among Muslim and other religious minorities in Europe, while linking these transformations to domestic opportunity structures rather than transnational reconfigurations of so-called “global Salafism”.
U2 - 10.1017/S1755048323000056
DO - 10.1017/S1755048323000056
M3 - Article
SN - 1755-0483
VL - 16
SP - 416
EP - 434
JO - Politics and Religion
JF - Politics and Religion
IS - 3
ER -