Why I Am a Salafi

Abstract

Is it possible to develop a theory of Salafism, the school of thought which affirms the authority of the first three generations of the Prophet’s pious followers, that is based in heterodoxy, theological disorder, innovation, sensation, and the body? One normally finds in Salafi thought support for the Hadith corpus over the Qur’an, a scathing critique of the madhhab system of scholarly authority, and a preference for a strictly literal interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah. But with new scholarship in this field, we must recognize the wide diversity of Salafi thought and begin to avoid reductive clichés. Fortunately, Salafism has recently come under increasing scrutiny in academic studies. For example, we have movements such as “neo-Salafism” in politics and “sophisticated Salafism” emerging today, which are open to forms of knowledge outside the Sunnah. It is in this vein of new scholarship on Salafism and western expressions of Islam that Michael Muhammad Knight’s Why I Am a Salafi (2015) should be read. The book combines an academic and journal-based reflection on the author’s evolving religious identity as an American Muslim. It begins in the wake of Knight’s experience of ingesting ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant known to promote spiritual epiphanies and insight. This experience was the focus of his last book, Tripping with Allah (2012), that documented his psychedelic journey. Why I Am a Salafi is written less as a travelogue or an openjournal format than were his previous books Journey to the End of Islam (2009) and Tripping. For example, in Journey Knight documents his adventures and travels in Pakistan and India, throughout the Middle East, to where he lives in America, and finally in Makkah, where he performs the hajj ...