ABSTRACT
Jihadi Salafism as a category of militant Islamism is no longer a coherent signifier of the movement it presumes to describe. Scholars of political Islam have divided Salafism, a puritanical strand of Sunni Islam, into three broad categories: quietists, activists, and jihadists. This typology, however, overlooks critical differences within the Jihadi Salafist camp and thus needs refinement. Islamists that embrace both jihad and Salafism exhibit important ideological, strategic, and tactical differences. As a matter of fact, Jihadi Salafist factions often embark on fratricidal violence against their ideological kin, making it difficult for observers to speak of Jihadi Salafism as a singular, unified movement. Specifically, Jihadi Salafists enmeshed in civil wars since the 1990s have diverged on important issues such as collective takfir, sectarian targeting, and notions of the ideal polity. These disagreements produced distinct repertoires of violence and targeting portfolios among adherents of jihadi Salafism. It also led to a major rupture between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. This chapter traces the evolution of Salafism since the 1990s, highlights critical differences among militants that embrace both Salafism and Jihadism, and introduces a more nuanced typology of Salafism, one that accounts for its sectarian tendencies.
