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Clifford Geertz analyzed religious change in Morocco by developing an approach to Islam that uses both history and anthropology. His analysis is rooted in his conception of anthropology as a discipline whose focus is culture, a system of meanings through which human beings exchange goods and symbols. In traditional societies, religion has a particular place in this system where it plays a political role of legitimation. European domination provoked change in Morocco, including the decline of sacredness and the triumph of Salafism, a doctrine more appropriate to the national feeling. A post-Geertzian perspective might consider that Salafism, which has become an official doctrine of the postcolonial state, became radicalized while it was providing mass education, giving rise to the Islamist challenge. The decline of sanctity created a void that Islamism filled.

Clifford Geertz analyzed religious change in Morocco by developing an approach to Islam that uses both history and anthropology. His analysis is rooted in his conception of anthropology as a discipline whose focus is culture, a system of meanings through which human beings exchange goods and symbols. In traditional societies, religion has a particular place in this system where it plays a political role of legitimation. European domination provoked change in Morocco, including the decline of sacredness and the triumph of Salafism, a doctrine more appropriate to the national feeling. A post-Geertzian perspective might consider that Salafism, which has become an official doctrine of the postcolonial state, became radicalized while it was providing mass education, giving rise to the Islamist challenge. The decline of sanctity created a void that Islamism filled.

Clifford Geertz analyzed religious change in Morocco by developing an approach to Islam that uses both history and anthropology. His analysis is rooted in his conception of anthropology as a discipline whose focus is culture, a system of meanings through which human beings exchange goods and symbols. In traditional societies, religion has a particular place in this system where it plays a political role of legitimation. European domination provoked change in Morocco, including the decline of sacredness and the triumph of Salafism, a doctrine more appropriate to the national feeling. A post-Geertzian perspective might consider that Salafism, which has become an official doctrine of the postcolonial state, became radicalized while it was providing mass education, giving rise to the Islamist challenge. The decline of sanctity created a void that Islamism filled.

The Arab Maghreb-the long stretch of North Africa that expands from Libya to Mauritania-is a vitally important region that impacts the security and politics of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and the broader Middle East. As Middle East scholars Frederic Wehrey and Anouar Boukhars show in Salafism in the Maghreb, it is also home to the conservative, literalist interpretation of Islam known as Salafism, which has emerged as a major social and political force. Through extensive interviews and fieldwork, Wehrey and Boukhars examine the many roles and manifestations of Salafism in the Maghreb, looking at the relationship between Salafism and the Maghreb's ruling regimes, as well as competing Islamist currents, increasingly youthful populations, and communal groups like tribes and ethno-linguistic minorities. They pay particular attention to how seemingly immutable Salafi ideology is often shaped by local contexts and opportunities. Informed by rigorous research, deep empathy, and unparalleled access to Salafi adherents, clerics, politicians, and militants, Salafism in the Maghreb offers a definitive account of this important Islamist current.

Salafism is a current within the Sunni Islam, which interprets Islamic history and dogmas with special emphasis on doctrinary, spiritual and behavioural purity. Its central tenet is that there is a radical breach between the authentic Islam of the first decades of Muslim history and the subsequent developments of the cultural and religious Islamic tradition, the latter being blamed for having allowed the corruption of the divine message during encounters with foreign and non-Muslim cultures. Contemporary Salafism generally promotes a conservative vision of Islam in the manner of Wahhabism and encourages the development of a universal type of Muslim, with no specific cultural allegiances, whose identity is based on the strict observance of a clearly spelled out theological and behavioral catechism. In addition to this pietistic Salafism -non-political in principle- a militant Salafism has emerged in recent years, which proclaims the superiority of Islam over the Western world and the need for a return to the original Islamic teachings, as well as envisaging an apocalyptic vision of a global battle between good and evil, fought by two generic entities called the Islam and the West. This sublimated imagery and vision of war moves beyond mere rhetoric and encompasses more than a substitute ideology (possibly meant to compensate for the failure of the traditional nationalisms in many Muslim countries). Effectively involved in the Afghan war, most of the radical movements thereby developed have added to their ideological position a substantial military and organizational expertise. Following the retreat of the Soviet army from Afghanistan, many Jihadi movements -later to acquire media visibility due to their association with al-Qaida- steer their strategic interests towards the West, in particular Europe and the United States. The increasingly large Muslim population settled here facilitates activities of recruitment, mobilization and implementation of violent action taken in the name of the globalizing belligerent goals envisaged by Islamist ideologists.