There are few living researchers who have influenced my approach to research more than has Professor Stéphane Lacroix of Sciences Po. I have returned many times to his book Awakening Islam, a study of the interaction of Salafism and Islamism in Saudi Arabia, and I have also frequently come back to his chapter on Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (d. 1999) in the edited collection Global Salafism. So I was very excited to see his latest book, Twilight of the Saints: The History and Politics of Salafism in Contemporary Egypt, published by Columbia University Press in 2025. Prof. Lacroix generously answered my questions about the book.
AT: A central concept in your book is the notion of Salafis having a “grammar of action.” What does this mean? You note further that the Salafi grammar is not static. What are some examples of “grammatical error[s]” leading to “grammatical evolution” (p. 17)?
SL: The concept of a “grammar of action” stems from my dissatisfaction with the notion of ideology, which is widely used to describe Salafism but is, in my view, both too rigid and too imprecise. One recurrent analytical problem is that Salafis often draw on the same corpus of religious references—shared concepts as well as the same key authors—while adopting very different social and political modes of action. Quintan Wiktorowicz’s well-known tripartite typology of Salafism was an important attempt to address this problem. I approach it somewhat differently. I see Salafism as akin to a language: its religious references constitute a recognizable vocabulary, but it is the grammar that transforms that vocabulary into praxis. The grammar of action is what builds on the text to produce particular patterns of behavior. By placing grammar at the center of my analysis, I focus first and foremost on what Salafis do rather than simply on what they say.
This is also, I would argue, the most effective way to distinguish Salafis from the Muslim Brotherhood - both movements emerged in organized form in Egypt during the 1920s. The Muslim Brotherhood is driven by a political and state-centric grammar of action. Its ultimate goal is the establishment of an Islamic state, which requires political mobilization and the unification of the Muslim umma despite theological differences. In other words, politics ultimately trumps theology. Egyptian Salafis, by contrast, who first appeared with the creation of Ansar al-Sunna in 1926, are guided by a grammar of religious purity. Their priority is to preach strict theological and legal norms that distinguish a small group of “saved” believers (al-firqa al-najiyya)—the Salafis—from a much larger Muslim majority in need of correction. For Salafis, theology generally trumps politics. Politics is by no means absent—the label “quietism” is often misleading—but it is usually conceived as a very long game, one that can justify major concessions to existing regimes in order to preserve the space for preaching.
This concern with religious purity constitutes the core of the Salafi grammar of action. It encourages certain forms of behavior while ruling out others. Yet, as with any grammar, its rules are not immutable. Repeated and increasingly accepted “grammatical errors” gradually reshape the grammar itself. One example I discuss in the book is television preaching. When religious satellite channels first emerged in the 1990s, most Salafis opposed appearing on television because of the prohibition on representing human beings and because television was associated with “immoral” entertainment, such as MTV or Rotana. As television preaching became increasingly successful, however, particularly through mainstream preachers such as Amr Khalid, a handful of Salafis decided to appear on religious channels. They were fiercely criticized by their “Salafi brothers,” who regarded this as a deviation. Their response was pragmatic: if television had become such an effective medium for preaching, it could not simply be left to their religious rivals. Over time, more and more Salafis followed their example, and the consensus shifted. Today, only a tiny minority of Salafi scholars would refuse an invitation to appear on television.
AT: Who was Muhammad Hamid al-Fiqi? How do you see his historical significance for Salafism in Egypt and worldwide?
SL: Muhammad Hamid al-Fiqi is one of the central figures in my book because, more than anyone else, he helped shape what we now recognize as Salafism. Born in Egypt in 1892, he came of age under the influence of the Islamic reform (islah) movement associated with towering figures such as Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905) and Rashid Rida (1865–1935). Islamic reformists believed that the decline of the Muslim world under colonial domination could only be reversed through a return to authentic Islam.
Rashid Rida’s students took that message in different directions. One of them, Hasan al-Banna, interpreted it as a political project and went on to found the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 with the aim of establishing an Islamic state. Al-Fiqi drew a very different conclusion. For him and a small circle of followers, politics was secondary. What mattered was the purification of Islamic beliefs and practices according to a Hanbali-Wahhabi understanding of Islam, which they regarded as the necessary precondition for any genuine Muslim renaissance. To advance that vision, he founded Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyya (”the Supporters of the Prophetic Tradition”) in 1926.
Al-Fiqi also played a decisive role in redefining the very meaning of the term Salafi. As Henri Lauzière has shown, the word had a much broader meaning in the early twentieth century and was used by reformists of quite different orientations. Al-Fiqi claimed it for a much more specific theological project, giving it essentially the meaning it carries today. His credentials also mattered. Unlike most Salafi leaders of his generation—and, to a large extent, even today—he was a graduate of al-Azhar, which gave him considerable religious authority.
Within a few decades, Ansar al-Sunna had become a discreet but highly influential organization. Through preaching and publishing, it played a major role in spreading Salafism in Egypt, including during the Nasser era, before gradually being eclipsed in the 1980s and 1990s by the Salafi Call (al-da’wa al-salafiyya). It also became Saudi Arabia’s principal Salafi partner abroad. Its members enjoyed close ties with the Saudi religious establishment, and one of them, ‘Abd al-Razzaq ‘Afifi, even became a member of the Kingdom’s highest religious body, the Council of Senior Ulama. In that sense, al-Fiqi’s significance extends well beyond Egypt: he helped establish both the intellectual foundations and the transnational networks that made contemporary Salafism into a global movement.
AT: Who are Muhammad Isma’il al-Muqaddim and Yasir Burhami, and what is their significance for understanding Salafism in Egypt?
SL: Muhammad Isma’il al-Muqaddim and Yasir Burhami belong to a later generation than al-Fiqi. Born in the 1950s, they founded, together with a handful of others, Egypt’s second major Salafi organization in chronological terms: the Salafi Call (al-da’wa al-salafiyya), at the end of the 1970s. Since the late 1980s or early 1990s, the Salafi Call has been the dominant force within Egypt’s Salafi movement.
Like many Islamists of their generation, Burhami and al-Muqaddim were shaped by the distinctive political and religious climate of the 1970s. Both were student activists at Alexandria University and members of the jama’at islamiyya (”Islamic groups”), which functioned as a kind of ideological melting pot where students encountered influences ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to Salafism. By the end of the decade, Burhami, al-Muqaddim and their associates had opted for a distinctly Salafi path and founded the Salafi Call. Others emerging from the same milieu joined the Muslim Brotherhood, while a smaller faction embraced jihadi violence.
A key question is why they created a new Salafi organization when Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyya had already existed for more than fifty years. I discuss this at length in the book. One important reason was organizational effectiveness. Having observed both student activism and the Muslim Brotherhood from within, they concluded that if Salafism was to become a mass movement, it needed a mass organization. Ansar al-Sunna was primarily a scholarly and relatively elitist association; it had little experience in grassroots mobilization. The Salafi Call therefore adopted an organizational structure inspired by the Brotherhood’s, albeit in a simplified form, complete with a qayyim (”principal”), the Salafi equivalent of the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide.
They also broadened the Salafi message. Rather than limiting themselves to questions of creed (‘aqida) and theology, Burhami and al-Muqaddim presented Salafism, like other Islamist movements, as a comprehensive (shumuliyya) vision capable of addressing every aspect of individual and collective life. In that sense, the Salafi Call did not merely expand Salafism organizationally; it also transformed it into a mass movement with an all-encompassing social and religious project.
AT: You write that al-Muqaddim, Burhami, and others in the Salafi Call movement “wanted to establish themselves as full-fledged ulema [religious scholars] and so dedicated themselves to strengthening their religious credentials - despite the fact that all had medical or engineering degrees and lacked any formal religious training” (p. 111). Why have Salafis continued to uphold the ulema as models of religious authority even in an age when many other activist Muslims have derided the ulema as backwards and out of touch? And what does being an ‘alim mean to Salafis in Egypt and elsewhere?
SL: That was a central element of the Salafi Call’s strategy for establishing its legitimacy. The organization presented itself, first and foremost, as a school where members would acquire the religious sciences under the guidance of competent ulama. Even the title qayyim literally refers to the principal of a school. The irony, however, was that at the outset the movement had very few scholars who could genuinely claim that status. Burhami, al-Muqaddim, and their colleagues had the typical backgrounds of Islamist activists, having studied medicine or engineering rather than at traditional religious institutions. It took years of study, preaching, and publication—especially al-Muqaddim’s prolific writing—for them to establish themselves as respected ulama.
More broadly, this reflects a distinctive feature of Salafism. Unlike many Islamist movements, which have tended to valorize the activist or political organizer, Salafis continue to place the ‘alim at the center of religious authority. For them, the ideal leader is not primarily a politician or a mobilizer, but a scholar whose legitimacy rests on mastery of the Qur’an, the Sunna, and the religious sciences. That does not mean that formal credentials are indispensable—Salafis have often challenged the monopoly of institutions such as al-Azhar—but anyone aspiring to religious authority must nevertheless demonstrate scholarly competence and be recognized as such by peers and followers.
The turning point for the Salafi Call came around the turn of the twenty-first century, when the three towering figures of global Salafism—Ibn Baz, Ibn ‘Uthaymin, and al-Albani—died within a few years of one another. Their disappearance created space for a new generation of Salafi scholars. It also gave the leaders of the Salafi Call greater confidence that they no longer needed to defer to the Saudi religious establishment.
Their insistence on presenting themselves above all as ulama also distinguished them from other Islamist movements, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which they frequently criticized for its supposed lack of religious learning. At the same time, decades of state control over al-Azhar, especially since the Nasser era, had weakened the institution’s standing as an independent source of religious authority. This created an opening that the Salafi Call was well positioned to exploit. By presenting themselves as authentic scholars rather than political activists, its leaders claimed to fill that vacuum—and they did so with remarkable success. By the late 2000s, Egypt’s best-known religious figures were overwhelmingly Salafis, either from the Salafi Call itself or closely associated with it.
AT: How did the “Salafization of the [Muslim] Brotherhood” (p. 73) unfold - and what were/are its limits? Why did the Brotherhood lose out in the “battle for control of Salafism” after the 2011 revolution (p. 208)?
SL: When I use the term “Salafization of the Brotherhood” (tasalluf al-ikhwan) in the book, I am drawing on the work of my late friend Husam Tammam, who wrote about this phenomenon before his death in 2011. It captures one of the central arguments of my research: the relationship between Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood has not been one simply of opposition, but also of mutual influence.
Until the 1970s, Salafis and Brothers represented two distinct movements, with different religious visions and different grammars of action. From the 1970s onward, however, a grey zone emerged, and the boundaries between the two became increasingly blurred. On the one hand, some Salafis retained a Salafi religious vision while adopting elements of the Brotherhood’s organizational and political grammar of action, thereby becoming more politically engaged. On the other hand, some members of the Brotherhood increasingly adopted Salafi religious ideas and modes of reasoning.
Several factors contributed to this process. Some Muslim Brothers who fled repression in Egypt during the 1950s and 1960s settled in Saudi Arabia, where they encountered and were influenced by Salafi religious ideas. Later, the jama’at islamiyya milieu of the 1970s brought together young Islamists exposed to a wide range of influences. Just as the founders of the Salafi Call borrowed organizational methods from the Brotherhood, others from the same milieu who eventually joined the Brotherhood did so with a more conservative religious outlook shaped by Salafi ideals.
More broadly, the book argues that, since the 1970s, Salafism has gradually succeeded in redefining the boundaries of Islamic orthodoxy in Egypt. Some ideas that were once considered distinctive or marginal—such as particular views on gender mixing or relations with non-Muslims—became increasingly mainstream. The Brotherhood, like other Islamic movements, was affected by this broader Salafization of the religious field.
The issue of Salafism became particularly important in the Brotherhood’s internal debates during the 2000s, influencing its positions on political pluralism and democracy, relations with Christians and Shiites, and gender issues. The conservative faction that took control of the organization in 2009, sidelining reformist currents, was also the faction closest to this Salafi-inspired vision. This was the leadership in place when the 2011 revolution occurred, and it was this leadership that guided the Brotherhood through the parliamentary and presidential elections that followed.
This context helps explain why the Brotherhood, when confronted with electoral competition from the Salafi Call’s Nour Party, attempted to strengthen rather than distance itself from its Salafi credentials. During Muhammad Morsi’s final campaign event before the 2012 presidential election, for example, all of the religious speakers were Salafi figures supportive of the Brotherhood. But this strategy proved politically disastrous. By positioning itself as part of a broader “religious right,” the Brotherhood made durable alliances with non-Islamist groups much more difficult—unlike what happened, for instance, with Tunisia’s Ennahda party. At the same time, the Salafis did not become reliable allies: they remained political rivals throughout the transition and ultimately supported the army’s intervention against the Brotherhood in July 2013.
AT: You note the “Pyrrhic nature of Salafism’s ascent to quasi-hegemonic norm” (p. 241). What have Salafis won, and lost, throughout their long career in Egypt?
SL: As I mentioned earlier, a century of discreet but profound Salafi influence—beginning with the creation of Ansar al-Sunna in 1926—has helped redefine the boundaries of religious orthodoxy in Egypt. In that sense, Salafis have been remarkably successful: they succeeded in mainstreaming ideas and practices that were once considered marginal within Egyptian Islam.
Yet this success contained the seeds of a major contradiction. Their decision in 2011 to enter the political arena ultimately became their undoing. This decision was itself unexpected. For decades, the vast majority of Salafis, including the Salafi Call, had rejected institutional politics. In the aftermath of the 2011 revolution, however, a small group of Salafi Call activists managed to convince the leadership to create a political party. The initial success was undeniable and seemed to confirm the mainstreaming of Salafism: in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections after the revolution, the Nour Party won more than 25 percent of the vote.
The difficulties came afterward. Nour Party leaders disagreed over the party’s purpose and direction, leading to internal divisions. More fundamentally, the demands of politics placed the Salafi sheikhs in an uncomfortable position. Their legitimacy had always rested on their status as ulama—religious scholars supposedly detached from worldly interests and political calculations. Entering politics forced them to become politicians, requiring compromises and shifting positions according to circumstances. This gradually undermined the very source of authority on which they had built their influence.
Their support for the army’s intervention against the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013 may have helped preserve the party and the broader Salafi Call organization, but it came at a high cost. It damaged their credibility among many supporters and demonstrated the limits of the space available to them under the new regime. Although the authorities were willing to tolerate Salafis—and occasionally make use of them when convenient—they had no intention of allowing them to become an autonomous political force.
AT: You write that you encountered both openings and closures when it came to the prospects for conducting fieldwork in Egypt (pp. 25-26). You have also, of course, done extensive field research in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. How do you see the future of fieldwork in the Middle East? Is this a moment of pronounced closure and limitation for the field researcher - or do you see opportunities and bright spots?
SL: The future of fieldwork-based research in the Middle East does not look as bright as one might hope. First, this is because of the broader crisis affecting universities worldwide, with consequences for research funding, hiring, and the ability to support long-term fieldwork. Second, it is because of the wave of authoritarian restoration and consolidation that has swept through much of the region, increasing the risks associated with conducting research in such environments. Every scholar of Egypt remembers, for instance, the tragic case of Giulio Regeni, the Italian PhD student who was killed by Egyptian security forces in 2016.
This situation is compounded by the increasingly cautious approach of many Western universities, which are often reluctant to send students to countries they consider dangerous—sometimes for good reasons, but sometimes based on overly broad assessments of risk. Such procedures were far less common when I was a student myself. For those of us advising PhD students who want to conduct research in the region, this creates significant challenges.
At the same time, these constraints also create opportunities. They may encourage Middle East studies to explore questions and topics that have received less attention in the past. For many years, a large proportion of research in the social sciences focused on major themes such as political Islam, party politics, labor movements, and authoritarianism. In countries like Egypt today, studying these issues directly can expose researchers to significant risks. But society and politics can also be studied through less obvious entry points—through cultural practices, political economy/public policies, social networks, or everyday forms of interaction—that may attract less scrutiny.
Some of the most innovative research on Egypt today is precisely taking these approaches. It demonstrates that, even under difficult conditions, scholars can continue to produce important work.