The Volatility of Salafi Political Theology, the War on Terror and the Genesis of Boko Haram

This article discusses the genesis of Boko Haram as an offshoot of the Nigerian Salafi movement. In particular, it looks at the ambivalent relationship between Boko Haram’s first leader Muhammad Yusuf and the leaders of the mainstream Salafi group Ahlus Sunna. Using as a starting point Quintan Wiktorowicz’s threefold model of purist (or quietist), politico and jihadi Salafis, the article challenges the conclusion of two recent publications, which tend to see Boko Haram and Ahlus Sunna in terms of, respectively, jihadi and quietist Salafis. While agreeing that the rift between the two Nigerian groups reflects global Salafi debates, the article advances two critical arguments and one hypothesis. The first argument is that in terms of their political theology, the positions of quietist and jihadi Salafis are virtually identical, the differences between the two being contextual and volatile. Of the three categories identified by Wiktorowicz, only the politicos contain the germs of an alternative Salafi political theology. The second argument is that the War on Terror, encouraging the Saudi policy of promoting the exclusivist political theology of quietist Salafis in order to counter the jihadis, has created a context in which the politicos have been isolated and paradoxically a new, more extreme generation of jihadis like Yusuf (and, in the Middle east, ISIS) has been empowered. Finally the hypothesis, is that the rift between the Ahlus Sunna leaders and Yusuf was a consequence of the initial collaboration of the former in establishing a jihadi camp in Nigeria, followed by their decision to collaborate with the authorities in dismantling it.