The Making of Salafism

A masterpiece of original scholarship and very highly recommended.

While Lauzière's impressive exposition of the term's slippery semantic history is primarily of interest to specialists, his analysis is of crucial importance in demonstrating Salafism's commitment to textual literalism.

An excellent book that provides a brilliant historical analysis of the emergence and trajectory of the concept of Salafism.... a major contribution to the field.

[Lauzière] takes readers on a journey through the influences of political and social movements, their collaborators, and media pundits on a theological term—salafi.... Highly recommended.

As a scholar of Islam, Lauzière remains unmatched.

Ahmed El Shamsy, University of Chicago:
This book fills a crucial gap in modern Islamic intellectual history: it untangles the now ubiquitous term Salafism, showing how the concept was invented, used, and contested through the twentieth century as both an analytical tool and a self-identifier. This conceptual history is paired with rich biographical material, which locates the shifting meanings of Salafism in the context of the wider historical processes of colonialism and independence.

Jonathan Brown, Georgetown University:
An essential resource for those trying to understand Salafis and Salafism, confusing terms with very contested histories. Henri Lauzière brings sense and order to a debate that reaches back to medieval times yet still flashes across screens today. The Making of Salafism illuminates a crucial aspect of the intellectual history of the Middle East and North Africa in the twentieth century.

Malika Zeghal, Harvard University:
This book brings much needed clarity to the history of Salafism and revises common accounts of a little known yet much talked about Islamic intellectual trend. Henri Lauzière has skillfully fleshed out the genealogy of Salafism, and his work will have an important impact on the field of the history of ideas in the modern Muslim world.