Adis Duderija

Adis Duderija is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Islam and Society in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, and a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue, Griffith University. In addition to two sole authored monographs on progressive Islam published in 2011 and 2017, he is also the co-author (with Halim Rane) of Islam and Muslims in the West: Major Issues and Debates, and (with Alina Alak and Kristin Hissong) of Islam and Gender: Major Issues and Debates.

The term Salafism like jihad has been absorbed into mainstream Western media discourse, especially with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Much of the use of this term, however, is conceptually shrouded in confusion even in academic circles. Contemporary discussions on Salafism in the academia can be broadly categorized under those that grapple with the subject from the perspective of political science, and those who do so from a religious studies perspective. The former tend to discuss the concept in a fleeting manner usually by not much more than identifying Salafism’s theoreticians, such as Abdul Wahhab and Ibn Taymiyya and focus instead on the political, economic and the social dimensions behind the rise of Salafi movements. There is, accordingly, little interest...

The Muslim intellectual tradition is full of instances of contestation over the meaning and implications of many of its major concepts such as Sunna (custom or habit), Salafism, imam (belief or faith), tawhid (oneness or unity), and jihad (struggle), to name but the most prominent few. It is little wonder, then, that these and other major concepts in the Muslim intellectual tradition have been appropriated throughout Muslim history by various religious and political actors, with various degrees of success. Hence certain groups or actors were able to monopolies some of these concepts and came to be regarded or, indeed, simply to regard themselves as their most faithful, if not the only legitimate, interpreters. This history of contested interpretations is sometimes forgotten in the analys...

Adis Duderija

The Regress of Knowledge: Understanding the Concept of Salafism in Traditional Islam

What it means to be a “progressive Islamist”