‘Quietist’ Salafis after the ‘Arab revolts’ in Algeria and Libya (2011–2019): Between insecurity and political subordination

ABSTRACT

Revolutionary movements, like Salafi-jihadis, often capture public attention. However, as scholars of Salafism have long argued, quietist Salafis are the largest sub-group within, and in many ways the true heart of, Salafism in the southern Mediterranean and beyond. This article has two aims. First, it provides scholarship on Salafi groups in Libya and Algeria not tied to jihadi milieus. Second, it contributes new understandings of Salafi developments in two less-studied countries, namely Algeria and Libya. Via a comparative study of one prominent type of quietist Salafism, known as Madkhalism, in the post-2011 contexts of political transition and civil war (Libya) and limited political liberalization (Algeria), we show that whilst some Libyan Madkhalis partially constrained their rejection of taking up arms or of alliances with ideological competitors, their Algerian counterparts did not. We build on existing scholarship by explaining this divergence at the level of discrete political opportunity structures, both since and prior to the events of 2011, together with intra-Salafi framing competition and core quietist ideological convictions. Overall, we argue that Madkhalism has partially seen a bottom-up-driven shift over the last years that is likely to continue, further reshape the movement, and impact the countries in which its acolytes are embedded.

KEYWORDS:

• Salafism
• quietist Salafism
• Madkhalism
• Arab revolts
• Algeria
• Libya

Introduction

Algeria and Libya have sizeable and long-standing Salafi communities (Collombier, 2022; Wehrey & Boukhars, 2019). Whilst scholarship has often focused more on jihadi-leaning Salafi milieus in both countries (Filiu, 2018; Ghanem-Yazbeck, 2019; Wilson & Pack, 2019), a growing body of work studies quietist Salafi networks in Libya and Algeria since the 1980s and during the 2011 Arab uprisings (Bonnefoy & Kuschnitizki, 2015; Boubekeur, 2008; Buehler, 2017; Darif, 2014; Ghanem-Yazbeck, 2019; Volpi & Stein, 2015). This article canvasses novel empirics on one particular quietist Salafi trend, namely Madkhali-Salafis (henceforth Madkhalis), in Algeria and Libya through a cross-country comparative analysis of the trajectories of these actors and of their relationship to politics and violence since the ‘Arab uprisings’. Specifically, it contends that between 2011 and 2019, Madkhalis in Libya and Algeria – part of the same transnational quietist Salafi sub-movement centred on flows of ideas, resources, and preachers connected to the Saudi Arabia-based Madkhali authority figures, shaykh Rabi’ bin Hadi al-Madkhali and/or his brother shaykh Mohammed al-Madkhali (Meijer, 2011) – took different trajectories. By juxtaposing the actions and framing practices of Libyan and Algerian Madkhalis vis-à-vis the public rulings of these figures, and of Rabi’ bin Hadi al-Madkhali in particular, we contend that some Madkhalis in Libya departed from the shaykh’s edicts: some constrained their historical rejection of disobedience to the political ruler, of taking up arms, and of forming short-term alliances with ideological competitors (such as Islamist movements). By contrast, their Madkhali counterparts in Algeria did not.

Accordingly, this article first asks: What explains the decision of Madkhalis in Algeria and Libya to either maintain or instead to temporarily attenuate their long-standing rejection of participation in protests, of taking up arms, and of alliance-building with ‘antagonists’ since the Arab uprisings? How is Salafi ‘quietism’ shaped by the local and national political institutional contexts within which it operates? We build on existing scholarship that emphasizes the role of political opportunity structures (see for instance Cavatorta and Merone (2016)) by confirming the role of shifting national, but also local, political opportunity structures post-2011: Limited protests and regime survival (‘normal’ politics) in Algeria vs regime change and civil war (‘extraordinary’ politics) in Libya (Kalyvas, 2008; Zemni, 2015). Further, we complement this analysis via an actor-centred approach (Drevon, 2017) that underscores the role of the framing practices of local Madkhali leaders and acolytes in Libya and Algeria and intra-Salafi dynamics and ideational convictions regarding the importance of shunning oppositional politics and supporting incumbent regimes in driving the divergent trajectories of Madkhalism in these two countries.

Second, this article asks: How might Libyan Madkhalis’ decision to take up arms advance scholarly understandings of Salafi quietism and its relationship to politics? Despite typically rejecting participation in institutional and oppositional politics, quietists are still political: they act within political contexts (Meijer, 2016: 436) and typically proffer advice and obedience to regimes (Wagemakers, 2016a). Yet some recent scholarships theorize Salafi politics as involvement in ‘active institutional politics’, such as establishing civil society associations or political parties (Cavatorta & Merone, 2016, p. 3). This article seeks to build on and further advance these scholarly understandings of Salafi quietism and its relation to politics by arguing that Madkhalis in post-2011 Libya remained quietists despite politicizing – albeit short of entrance into institutional politics. Here we theorize this Madkhali politicization instead in terms of taking up new practices of contentious (Tilly & Tarrow, 2015), forceful (Nicholson, 2004), and ‘extraordinary’ politics (Kalyvas, 2008; Zemni, 2015).

Salafism after the ‘Arab revolts’: identifying different Salafi strands

Scholars argue that, whereas a broadly uniform ‘aqida (religious doctrine) fleshes out the content of Salafism, there is intra-Salafi disagreement over manhaj: How to apply the absolute sources of Islam to, inter alia, political authority (Pall, 2015), politics, society, da‘wah and worship (Wagemakers, 2016a). Wagemakers (2016a, p. 30) argues that quietists avow obedience to incumbent regimes and stay aloof from, or refrain from, actively participating in institutional and oppositional politics. Madkhalis specifically – what Wagemakers (Ibid.: 17) calls ‘propagandist’ quietists in the context of Saudi Arabia – support incumbent regimes as an ‘article of faith’. Crucially, whilst Madkhalis may claim to shun ‘politics’, they ‘use instruments of power to obtain hegemony in the transnational Islamic movement and ultimately become […] a political movement, proving resistance and ultimately fostering internal strife’ (Meijer, 2011: 376).

For Wagemakers (Ibid.: 10), then, politico Salafis diverge from quietists because they participate in parliamentary politics or, where they do not or indeed are prevented from doing so, they instead undertake contentious political debate and activism and set out their views on how the country should be run through letters, organizations, and petitions. Al-Anani (2016), however, canvasses a broader notion of what he terms ‘political’ Salafis: Actors who voice their opinion in the public sphere whether through participation in formal politics or by mobilizing informal networks (protests, social activism, and media appearances).

Moreover, some scholars argue that quietists, including Madkhalis, are distinct from Salafi-jihadis because, inter alia, they reject the latter’s use of violence with the specific goal of unseating incumbent regimes (via ‘revolutionary jihad’ (Wagemakers, 2016a)). Yet Wehrey and Boukhars (2019, p. 124) query this distinction, reasoning instead that the participation of Libyan Madkhali militias in ‘factional battles’ and violence demonstrates ‘the inadequacy of terms like “quietism” in the Libyan context’. Elsewhere, Pall (2015) and Lacroix (2016) argue that even Salafi groups who participate in party politics (al-hizbiyya) – such as running for office or engaging in other forms of political activism – in pursuit only of ‘reactionary’ goals and single issues such as implementing shariah and protecting their freedom to proselytize, remain quietists.

We seek to advance scholarly understanding of quietist Salafi politics by mobilizing a notion of quietist Salafi politics focused not (simply) on formal, institutional arenas of politics but rather on a broader set of political practices that, we argue, help to capture the political and militant potential of Libyan Madkhalis. First, we argue that in post-2011 Libya Madkhalis engaged in a new ‘extraordinary’ politics of ‘conscious popular participation’, informal and ‘extra-institutional spontaneous collective action’ as they sought to become ‘authors of their destiny’, transforming cultural meanings and the structures of society (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 7; Zemni, 2015). Furthermore, we note that politics is ‘a matter of some persons compelling others’ to comply with decisions that either involve ‘the use of force’ or that are ultimately backed by (the threat of) force (Nicholson, 2004, p. 49; see also Weber, 1994). In what follows, then, we contend that Madkhali militias in Libya also undertook such a political practice by enforcing security and Salafi norms through coercive means – that is, backed by (the threat of) violence. Further, we contend that Libyan Madkhalis engaged in a contentious politics (Tilly & Tarrow, 2015) of making public claims to public funds and on society to shun ‘disorderly’ and ‘criminal’ conduct. They also developed short-lived alliances with long-standing ideological rivals, including Islamist factions.

Finally, we depart somewhat from Wagemakers and al-Anani and instead build on Pall’s and Lacroix’s work by contending that this Madkhali politicization in post-2011 Libya did not mean that they became politicos or jihadi-Salafis. Rather, they remained quietists because they undertook these new modes of politics in pursuit of core quietist goals: Preserving their ability to conduct da‘wah and purify Islamic doctrine (Lacroix, 2016), implementing shariah law (Meijer, 2016), securing ‘reactionary goals’ such as challenging the power of Islamist parties, liberals, and alleged secularists, and thus disavowing oppositional politics, and rejecting revolutionary violence and public disobedience vis-à-vis incumbent regimes.

Explaining the Divergent Trajectories of Madkhalis in Algeria and Libya

Social Movement Theory (SMT) is an interdisciplinary body of literature that has arguably become the dominant theoretical corpus for scholars seeking to explain continuity and changes within Salafi movements’ ideology, strategies, and behaviour (Meijer, 2009; Meleagrou-Hitchens, 2020). SMT is a set of theories with different social movement scholars relying on different aspects, including historical path dependencies in resource allocation, systemic collapse, and internal division – often subsumed as ‘political opportunities’ (Chesters & Welsh, 2004; Lamb-Books, 2016) – when explaining their particular movement or development, such as a revolution or shifts regarding social movements’ strategies, rhetoric, and practice (Bobel, 2007; Drevon, 2017; Tilly & Tarrow, 2015).

Drawing on this approach, scholarly literature on Salafi movements by, for example, Eyre (2021), Lacroix (2009) and Merone et al. (2019) demonstrates that Salafis’ relationship to politics is shaped by external constraints and opportunities emanating from domestic institutions, including Salafi fear of state repression and state co-optation. As Cavatorta and Merone (2015:31) observe, the collapse of incumbent regimes in 2011/12 and the large political openings that resulted meant that it was ‘quite logical that Salafis might try their hand at institutional politics to compete with rival ideological trends for the control of public and/or institutional space’. By contrast, where protests were more limited and incumbent regimes did not fall Salafis ‘seem to find it ideologically and strategically more pragmatic not to engage in institutional politics’ (Ibid.: 31).

Furthermore, where important work on Algeria and Libya explains the emergence and popularity of Salafi groups, it typically furnishes a relatively brief explanatory analysis of the trajectories of quietist Salafis (Boubekeur, 2008; Ghanem-Yazbeck, 2019). We build, however, on Boukhars and Wehrey’s (2019:60) more detailed assessment of the role of ‘shifting opportunity structures and Salafis’ own interactions with the governing authorities’ in shaping Salafi ideology and activity. We do so by confirming the role of shifting national but also local political opportunity structures not only post-2011 but also longer-standing histories of state co-optation and repression of Salafis (since the 1980s), including the legacy of the Algerian civil war (1991–2002), in explaining the different trajectories of Madkhalis in Algeria and Libya following 2011. Furthermore, we argue that after 2011 Libya’s Madkhalis formed militias to provide security, consolidate power, and enforce Salafi norms, but did not form political parties or enter parliamentary politics (in contrast to Cavatorta and Merone’s line of reasoning). More broadly, drawing on the scholarship of Kalyvas (2008) and also Zemni (2015), we delineate the divergent political opportunity structures that Madkhalis in Algeria and Libya faced post-2011 as ‘normal’ and ‘extraordinary’ politics, respectively. After all, the 2011 protests in Algeria did not become nationwide unrests (Volpi, 2013b, p. 984) nor did they reach revolutionary levels of mobilization. The regime ultimately maintained control over the political system, returning to a reformist mode of governance and resumed what, in Kalyvas’ terms, amounted to ‘normal politics’: ‘monopolized by political elites […] rigid institutionalized procedures […] and parliamentary-electoral process’, led by ‘political elites, professional bureaucrats, and social technicians’, and characterized by widespread depoliticization (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 6).¹ However, as a result of the legacy of the Algerian civil war and, therein, public exhaustion, if not disillusionment, with Islamist politics and parties, together with the regime’s decision to allow Algerian Madkhalis to expand their socio-religious activities as a counter-weight to jihadi-Salafi activism, Algeria’s Madkhalis had little to gain and much to lose by departing from their long-standing rebuke of institutional and oppositional politics.

By contrast, we argue that the legacy of greater pre-2011 regime constraints on Libyan Madkhali activism than in Algeria meant that, following the unseating of the Qadhafi regime and Libya’s subsequent spiral into civil war, the much larger political openings that Libyan Madkhalis faced (vis-à-vis their Algerian counterparts) incentivized them to undertake new forms of activism in order to consolidate and expand their influence in the country. They did so in the context of a new ‘extraordinary’ politics: what Kalyvas (Ibid.: 7) characterizes as the ‘self-institution of society’ amidst ‘high levels of collective mobilization; extensive popular support for some fundamental changes; […] the formation of extra-institutional […] movements’.

Finally, we complement this structuralist analysis with an actor-centred approach (see also Drevon (2017)) that underscores the role of the framing practices and competition of local Madkhali preachers and acolytes, and Madkhali ideational convictions regarding the ‘illegitimacy’ of oppositional politics and disobedience to incumbent regimes, in driving the divergent trajectories of Madkhalism in both countries.

We substantiate these arguments by drawing on frame analysis (via SMT) of 56 primary sources (Salafi printed and online literature and national and local media sources in Arabic and English) to map movement dynamics. We argue that comparing the discrete framing practices (diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational) and rhetoric of acolytes of the same transnational Salafi movement across these two distinct national contexts helps to explain the different strategies of Madkhalis in each county.² In addition, we incorporate 17 interviews³ into the analysis utilizing grounded theory, providing opportunities to uncover new insights through an analysis driven by our data (Charmaz, 2006).

State co-optation and hybridity in state-Salafi relations in Algeria and Libya

Two broad Salafi trends emerged in Algeria in the 1970s and 1980s. The first is a ‘quietist’ Salafi milieu associated with Madkhalism and headed by, among others, Ali Ferkous, Abdelmalek Ramdani, and Azzedine Ramdani. It consistently opposed participation in institutional and oppositional politics and expounded obedience to the Algerian regime. Following the Algerian regime’s decision to replace the long-standing single-party Algerian political system with a multi-party system and multi-candidate open elections, however, a section of Algeria’s Salafi base modulated their historical rejection of formal institutional politics and established a new, politicized Salafi trend associated with the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). The FIS was the result of a ‘delicate power-sharing balance’ between the Islamism of Abassi Madani and the Salafism of Ali Belhadj (Salih, 2013). Yet, after the FIS was on course to win the first round of the subsequent parliamentary elections in 1991, the army cancelled elections and dissolved the movement. A political crisis ensued, and FIS activists increasingly fragmented into the Armed Islamic Group and, ultimately, the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat. The Algerian civil war (1991–2002) took hold.

During and since the Algerian civil war, the regime drew distinctions between anti-system groups, such as the FIS, which it repressed harshly and, on the other hand, pro-status quo activists, such as Madkhalis and loyalist Islamist parties. The latter were co-opted by the regime via state patronage linked to Algeria’s rentier economy (Volpi, 2013a, p. 104). The Algerian state permitted these Madkhalis to expand their influence in mosques and universities, in the hope that this would provide ‘an alternative to both political and armed activism’ (Volpi & Stein, 2015, p. 285). For example, it allowed Ferkous to lead workshops and prayers at the Dar al-Fadila association in Algiers,⁴ and to disseminate Salafi media, books, and pamphlets, and a magazine, al-Islah. The regime is, however, still cautious vis-à-vis these Madkhali groups and publicly questions their credentials as fully authorized national Algerian subjects.

1997 would mark a return to the nascent pseudo-democratic multi-party system that had been halted in 1991. The Algerian parliament was now re-opened and elections were held. By the 2000s, the violence of the Algerian civil war, public exhaustion, if not disillusionment, with Algerian Islamist politics, and popular suspicion of the co-optation of Islamist parties, meant that the Madkhalis were able to garner considerable popular support (Boubekeur, 2008). This would also be important from 2011, we argue, because Algerian Madkhalis were thus incentivized to preserve their socio-religious activities and alliance with the Algerian regime by consolidating their pro-regime loyalism and continuing to shun oppositional and institutional politics.

Whilst the Algerian regime shared with the Qadhafi regime a strong centralized system, single individual decisions in Algeria are not taken by a single dominant individual dominating discrete political coalitions (Vandewalle, 2012). Instead, political decisions are taken by a wider ruling coalition of senior military leaders, civil allies, and the intelligence community. Libya, however, never introduced a more liberalized authoritarian political system of the kind that emerged in Algeria in the late 1980s (briefly) and then since the late 1990s. Instead, under Qadhafi the jamahiriyya⁵ tolerated no political competition. Prior to 2011, Qadhafi also propounded his own form of ‘Islamism’ to rebuff the activism of Islamist movements. As the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group challenged regime control in eastern Libya in the mid-1990s, Qadhafi increasingly securitized Islamism, including Salafi trends, via a strategy of ‘uncompromising repression’ of all Islamic activism (Pargeter, 2008). Due to their pro-regime loyalism, Madkhali movements faced less regime repression than other Islamic trends. From the early 2000s, Qadhafi and his third son, Saadi, incorporated some quietist Salafis into the regime (indeed today, some Libyans still refer to Libyan Madkhalis as ‘Saadi’s Movement’).⁶ Yet, the Qadhafi regime did not afford Libyan Madkhalis the same latitude that the Algerian regime gave to Madkhalis during and since the Algerian civil war. This meant that, unlike Algeria’s Madkhalis who had reason to preserve their extensive da‘wah and teaching activities by reinforcing their pro-regime loyalism, amidst the ‘extraordinary’ politics and political openings of post-2011 Libya, Libyan Madkhalis had more incentive to expand their activism, including taking up more militant forms of activism and expanding their more limited socio-religious presence (vis-à-vis their Algerian counterparts).

The popular protests in Libya in 2011 were arguably somewhat set apart from those in, for example, Tunisia and Egypt because of the lack of any ‘incipient precursors to social movements’ under Qadhafi’s rule (Joffé, 2018, p. 508). With the onset of nationwide protests in Libya in 2011, for the first time many Libyans were pushed towards having an opinion on local politics as a new ‘extraordinary’ politics took shape. We argue that, for the first time, many Libyans consciously participated in local politics, including through extra-institutional ‘spontaneous collective action’ (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 7; see also Zemni (2015)) – even if this political change was heavily supported by external powers (Kuperman, 2013). However, in line with their core quietist tenets, Madkhalis largely refrained from violence and participation in the demonstrations. Furthermore, in an interview for this study, one Libyan Salafi shaykh based in Tripoli argued that Saadi Qadhafi attended the Issa al-Awsi mosque in Mansoura and the Bennabi mosque in the early 2000s, both frequented by Madkhalis in Tripoli. Additionally, this Salafi shaykh emphasized that Saadi seemed ‘personally committed to the Salafi way’, travelling to Saudi Arabia where he met shaykh al-Madkhali himself. Saadi also hosted Saudi and Yemeni ‘quietist’ Salafi shaykhs in Libya.⁷ In the eyes of another interviewee, a Libyan Salafi scholar in Tripoli, it became clear that Saadi Qadhafi’s partial ‘salafization’ in the years prior to 2011 was constitutive of the regime’s broader agenda for dominating the domestic religious field: the remit of Saif al-Islam Qadhafi, Qadhafi’s second son, was to ‘control the Islamists’ whilst Saadi Qadhafi was tasked with ‘controlling’ Madkhali groups.⁸ Both interviewees emphasized that these relationships contributed to the pro-regime loyalty of Libya’s Madkhali milieu.

In the first weeks of the 2011 revolution, Libyan Madkhalis became further publicly co-opted into the regime and its propaganda apparatus. Figures such as shaykh Majdi Hafala, a prominent local Madkhali scholar, appeared regularly on television condemning the protesters.⁹ However, the Madkhali movement in Libya was not particularly influential during the revolution. In this way, the behaviour of the Madkhali leadership in Libya in the early weeks of the 2011 protests was not dissimilar from those of their Madkhali counterparts in Algeria, who also rebuked the protests and reasserted their loyalty to the incumbent regime. In 2011, Libyan Madkhalis did not stand to benefit from any prospective opening of political space, and their quietist ideology was in opposition to anti-regime protests as they played out in Libya.

The primacy of non-involvement in anti-regime protests defines framing attempts

Overall, Libyan Madkhalis declared the rebellion ‘forbidden’ in their diagnostic framing, and in their prognostic framing they called on Libyans to not join the protests. They also implicitly supported the violent crackdown on the protesters by the Qadhafi regime. Shaykh Rabi‘ bin Hadi al-Madkhali is – what (Larana et al., 1994) would term a ‘formal leader’ of the transnational Madkhali social movement – has proven particularly successful in attaching meaning to ongoing developments due to his legitimacy and authority, which precede his utterances.

Commenting on the aftermath of popular protests in Tunisia and Egypt via an online publication, Madkhali argued that Islam ‘forbids rebellion against’ and disobedience vis-a-vis incumbent political rulers.¹⁰ Instead, he reasoned, the protest movements were ‘ignorant’ and bore ‘no hope nor desire for an Islamic state to be established’. Whilst he made few public pronouncements regarding the limited 2011 protests in Algeria,¹¹ al-Madkhali forcefully condemned the 2011 protests in Libya as fitna and mihna (chaos or tribulation). The shaykh justified his opposition of the demonstrations by building diagnostic frames on two foundations: (1) the categoric misdeed of revolting against the ruling authority; and (2) the misguidedness of the ‘protesters’, who he argued were ‘corrupted’ by ‘Western’ ideas.

In another sermon published, on 4 October 2011, al-Madkhali contended that ‘one of the most dangerous innovations coming to the lands of Islam is democracy and the call for freedom that was invented by the atheists of the West and their followers’.¹² Here, al-Madkhali painted ‘democracy’ (and with it a whole plethora of liberal concepts and practices such as ‘freedom’, the ‘civil state’ and ‘elections’) as ‘foreign’ to the Muslim world and religious innovation (bida‘h) within Islam.¹³

The resulting solution (prognostic frames) that he proposed to the constructed meaning of the 2011 protests (diagnostic frames) was therefore straightforward: Stay away from the protests. Picking up one of the most popular demands of the protesters – ‘justice’ – he argued that in democracy, there is no justice as true freedom in Islam liberates a person from all the slavery permitted by democracy and other non-Islamic legislation.¹⁴ Therefore, calling for democracy simultaneously meant calling for injustice.

With this, he propounded a strategic framing attempt as some Libyan Madkhalis could identify with the calls for justice while being sceptical of demands for democracy. By linking the two, al-Madkhali sought to discourage his followers, including those in Algeria and Libya, from joining the 2011/12 protests on the grounds that the protesters calls for, inter alia, democracy were illegitimate.¹⁵ In early October 2011, just 3 weeks before Qadhafi was killed by rebel militias in Sirte, al-Madkhali argued via his personal website that the Prophet Muhammad’s ‘companions’ would not fight these types of battles as no ‘true’ Salafi should take up arms because the ‘only objective of fighting that is permitted in Islam is to fight to raise the word of God’. However, he concluded, the rebellion in Libya pursued illegitimate objectives, including democracy promotion.¹⁶

Implicit in this framing is also Madkhali’s proposed solution: Taking refuge in Islam by concentrating on prayers, and asking God for help, guidance and forgiveness (du‘ah).¹⁷ Furthermore, he argued, if one feels threatened by, or tempted to join, the protests one should ‘stay [at] home and firmly close the doors. And whoever forces and enters upon you (…) repel him (…) with the least force and if he rejects it then repel him with what you are able’. In case one is injured or even killed in this exchange, the victim (if he is Muslim) will be[come] a martyr.¹⁸

Whilst al-Madkhali’s call for non-participation in the 2011–12 protests in Libya was largely accepted by Madkhali actors in the country, the local circumstances in Libya meant that some Libyan Madkhalis decided to divert from al-Madkhali’s rationales, and they instead participated in the ongoing revolt. As one Madkhali figure who joined a military brigade in 2011 explained: ‘I joined my brothers in my neighbourhood to defend ourselves (…) Qadhafi was out of control’.¹⁹ Local pressures, violence, and concurring understandings among Libya’s Salafis that Qadhafi was becoming an ‘un-Islamic’ ruler who could therefore justly be opposed outweighed the gravitas of Rabi’ Madkhali’s framing attempts that circulated from Saudi Arabia.

Turning now to Algeria, in the context of increasing commodity food prices, a series of riots and protests involving street fights between youths and police, and a spate of self-immolations, spread to major cities and towns in January 2011 (Brown, 2011). Islamic figures were mostly absent from the riots, however (Volpi, 2013b). The regime quickly intervened. Using restricted repression, it reversed the price increases. Within days, many of the demonstrations dissipated. Along these lines, the regime also returned to its reformist mode of governance: It announced a new job-creation programme and promised to end the state of emergency (in place since 1992). In other words, ‘normal’ politics resumed: The political system remained dominated by political elites and bureaucrats and characterized by rigid institutionalized procedures and depoliticization (see also Volpi (2013a)).

In contrast to the huge political openings that emerged in post-2011 Libya, in Algeria the much more limited political openings, but also the extensive presence of Madkhalis in the religious and public fields, meant that Algerian Madkhalis had little reason to deviate from their long-standing repudiation of oppositional and institutional politics. Furthermore, the historical legacy of the Algerian civil war (1991–2002) was such that politicized Islamic movements had very little popular support in Algeria (Ghanem-Yazbeck, 2019). Consequently, alongside their erstwhile ideological convictions regarding the illegitimacy of institutional and oppositional politics, for Algeria’s Madkhalis forging an alliance with unpopular Islamist actors or engaging in new oppositional activism risked jeopardizing their long-standing relationship with their historical domestic ally: The Algerian regime itself.

In this context, the Algerian Madkhali shaykh, Ferkous, swiftly issued a fatwa that described self-immolation as forbidden, even if an ‘expression of despair and discontent in the political and social situation’.²⁰ On 6 March 2011, the highest religious body in Saudi Arabia and dominated by global ‘quietist’ Salafi authority figures – the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, with whom Ferkous remained aligned – issued a fatwa forbidding demonstrations. Days later, Ferkous also came out unambiguously against the protests and upheavals of the ‘Arab revolts’ (see also Wehrey & Boukhars, 2019). As acolytes of Madkhalism in Algeria underlined in interviews for this article, strict obedience to the political ruler remained a core ruling of Islam as they understood it.²¹

Ferkous’ diagnostic framing portrayed the demonstrations as ‘Western’ and ‘democratic’ practices that are forbidden in Islam.²² The shaykh claimed that all demonstrations, however peaceful, are illegitimate because they engender ‘unrest and damage’. ‘True reform’, Ferkous reminded Algerians, required complete obedience to the ruler no matter the injustice that society faces.²³ Other key Algerian Madkhali figures spoke out too. For instance, the Saudi-based Algerian scholar Abdelmalek Ramdani issued a fatwa in mid-March 2011 urging Muslims to ignore calls for change and disavow demonstrations because they involve the mixing of men and women and violate the injunction to obey incumbent political rulers (Al-Shorouk, 2011).

Yet from March 2011, in his diagnostic framing of the situation in Algeria, Ferkous began to subtly modulate his approach to matters of ‘crisis’ (azma), social division and strife (fitna), and reform (islah).²⁴ He has now begun to locate the ‘rights’ and ‘justice’ that the demonstrators and strikers sought within his own conception of contemporary fitna, and positioned the demonstrators’ proposed reforms as ‘noble goals’ and ‘religiously legislated’. Demonstrating, therefore, how Madkhalis, and quietist Salafis more broadly, often do not avoid politics nor discussion of social and political issues but instead invoke these matters, albeit couched in Islamic terms, Ferkous moved away from his historical exclusive concern with teaching Islam and cleansing it of impurities.

‘Extraordinary’ politics in post-Qadhafi Libya yet ‘normal’ politics in Algeria

Ahead of the 2014 presidential elections in Algeria, Ferkous and 11 other Salafi scholars affiliated with Algerian Madkhalism issued a statement warning people against going out to the street and boycotting the elections (Noonpost, 2014). Besides, as Ferkous reasoned, to form a political party was ‘forbidden’, and participation in politics more broadly, was outlawed in Islam.

In contrast to its unified rebuke of the 2011 protests, in the summer of 2017 tensions within the Ferkous-led Madkhali camp erupted. Ferkous abruptly left the Dar al-Fadila publishing house, denouncing the monopoly that other Madkhali scholars, most notably the Algiers-based Salafi scholars Azzedine Ramdani and Abdelghani Aouissat, held over the Salafi institution (Al-Shorouk, 2018). By turn, these scholars condemned Ferkous’ ‘exploiting [of] the Salafi call for personal purposes’ and the dispute became an open feud (Ibid.). The following year, Mohammed al-Madkhali, the younger brother of Rabi‘ al-Madkhali, confirmed Ferkous and other prominent quietist Salafis in Algeria, notably Abdelmadjid Djema and Lazhar Snigra, as 'heads' of the Algerian Madkhali movement (Cratar, 2023). A second clique of prominent Algerian Madkhali figures, centred on Abdelmalek Ramdani and Azzedine Ramdani, have, however, instead received recommendation from Rabi’ al-Madkhali (al-Quds, 2018; al-Shorouk, 2019).

In February 2019, the nationwide Algerian hirak protest movement erupted, sparked by public anger that President ‘Abd el-‘Aziz Bouteflika (1937–2021) sought a fifth presidential term, despite his poor health following a stroke in 2013 and the absence of substantive political and economic reform. In December 2019, Ali Ferkous, Abdelmajid Djema‘, and Lazhar Snigra again decreed that complete public obedience to the political ruler was essential for national stability; popular ‘dissent’ would engender turmoil, lawlessness, and fitna, they urged (Arabi24, 2019).

In sum, unlike some of their Libyan counterparts, between 2011 and 2019 Algerian Madkhalis did not politicize by seeking to enforce security and Salafi norms by coercive means nor by forming cross-ideological alliances. Instead, they persisted with their politics of pro-regime loyalism: Consistently rebuking protests, oppositional activism, and social upheaval.

Returning now to Libya, we argue that Libyan Madkhalis capitalized on the new political opportunities emanating from the political transition of 2011, as well as the civil war from 2013. Although Libya’s Madkhalis refrained from participating in the new central political institution, the General National Council (GNC), some participated in adjacent institutions, such as the panoply of newly-formed militias that had become integral to the emerging Libyan power structures (Lacher & Al-Idrissi, 2018). This was a strategic move. As Libya’s political institutions disintegrated in 2013/14 and the country slid into widespread violence, everyday Libyans sought security in their local neighbourhoods and the provision of providing basic services, including the management of prisons (Wehrey, 2013). Here, Libyan Madkhalis astutely sought to cater to these urgent needs. In doing so, they achieved widespread influence in security conglomerates in Libya, such as the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the local patchwork of militias in Sirte after the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) in December 2016 (Eaton et al., 2020). With the LNA largely financed by Libyan state funds, which in turn rely on oil revenues, Madkhali militias undertook new modes of contentious politics by making claims on these same public funds.

After the formation of a nascent democratic process, most Libyan Madkhalis refused to vote in or join political parties to compete in the July 2012 elections to the newly formed GNC. Thus, Algerian and Libyan Madkhalis set themselves apart from dramatic Salafi reconfigurations elsewhere in the MENA region, such as in Tunisia and Egypt, where Salafi actors founded political parties and ran for public office following the 2011/12 ‘Arab uprisings’. In 2011, the Madkhali movement in Libya was largely constituted of decentralized organizational structures. As a result, we argue that the general absence of central and senior Madkhali authority figures in Libya meant that rank-and-file acolytes enjoyed greater autonomy from the broader global Madkhali hierarchy. They could more freely react to the seismic political developments in post-2011 Libya on more of an individual basis – even on occasion in direct contravention of injunctions emanating from Madkhali in Saudi Arabia.

Still, in line with al-Madkhali’s continued rebuke of democracy,²⁵ and no doubt informed by Hafala’s public advice that young Libyans do not engage in politics because the best way to ‘do politics is to withdraw from politics’,²⁶ many rank-and-file Madkhalis did not participate in the elections. Local Libyan leaders, such as Abdulraouf Kara, also employed framing attempts aimed at identity construction to create stronger coherence within their neighbourhoods and on this basis developed local militias. While there is disagreement over whether Kara is himself ‘Madkhali’, he is the leader of a neighbourhood group that he formed in 2012 and which evolved into the Radaa force (also known as the Special Deterrence Force (SDF)) – it became ‘one of Tripoli’s most organized factions’ (Badi, 2020) over the course of the next years. The Radaa force includes a large contingent of Madkhalis who defer to Kara.²⁷

Kara’s framing attempts focused on neighbourhood concerns and underscored the need for self-protection. This led some Libyan Madkhalis to interpret the ongoing structural developments through Kara’s own interpretative lens and shaped by the fast-changing local contexts in which they were embedded.²⁸ In doing so, Kara responded to developments in the country, whilst also linking struggles in his neighbourhood to struggles faced by the Muslim umma during the early days of Islam. This linking strengthened his framing.

By 2015, Libya had split between two governing authorities: The Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and the House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk. Within this context, Libyan Madkhalis entrenched themselves in security institutions aligned with both sides by integrating its members into the LNA, which was allied with the HoR. Yet simultaneously they, for instance, became the main security provider in several neighbourhoods in Tripoli by integrating themselves into the Radaa force (SDF) that the GNA relied on to help implement security in the capital. Like Madkhalis in the LNA, when Madkhalis in the Radaa force cooperated with and ultimately became financed by the GNA, they therefore undertook a form of contentious politics by making public claims to oil-derived public funds.

Libya’s Madkhalis thus achieved significant political influence during this period. Further, they joined short-term alliances with ideological foes. For example, together with Islamist forces, and backed by Western military support, Libyan Madkhalis fought IS groupings in Sirte, including as part of ‘Operation Odyssey Lightning’, launched by the US Recognizing the importance of co-operation with hitherto ideological ‘rivals’, Libya’s Madkhalis therefore constrained their historical antagonism towards, inter alia, these Islamist actors – and who they had long berated for pursuing the ‘corruptions’ of politics and so abandoning ‘true’ Islam. Precursors to this cautious cross-ideological collaboration were found in 2012 when predecessors of the Radaa force forged a temporary and informal alliance with Abdulrazzak al-Aradi, a leading member of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and an NTC representative who helped set up the SSC in Tripoli (Trauthig, 2019).

Overall, Libyan Madkhalis aligned themselves along the fault lines of neighbourhoods and tribes.²⁹ After the instalment of the GNA after July 2015, and having successfully developed a strong military force in Tripoli, Madkhalis largely ceased their co-operation with these other armed groups in the capital. They also supported the need to engage critically with previous conceptualizations of engagement in the context of post-Arab uprisings in North Africa that are defined by transitionary political environments (Woodward et al., 2013). This is because the distinction between political and non-political spheres is blurred without a well-established monopoly of force and political institutions – captured in this study’s conceptualization of Salafi politics. This was exacerbated by the fact that there were essentially two centres of political authorities in post-2011 Libya, which meant that the Madkhali proclivity for proffering obedience to incumbent rulers could not be straightforwardly executed.

However, alongside joining military battles on either side of the Libyan divide (depending on who was considered the incumbent ruler), Madkhali forces also interfered in Libyan politics by enforcing strict Salafi social norms on the broader population. In Sirte, for example, Madkhalis waged an ideological challenge to their short-term Islamist allies who were part of the anti-IS coalition and hence entered Sirte with Madkhali forces after IS was driven out of the city in December 2016. Specifically, Madkhali preachers were recruited to lead Friday prayers and to further enforce their ideology. Local residents reported that Madkhali forces demanded that women wear the hijab and banned women from travelling without an accompanying male in Eastern Libya (Wehrey & Boukhars, 2019, p. 108).³⁰

Overall, this section argued that, while non-participation in the protests was a clear requirement of Islam for shaykh Madkhali, his (prognostic) framing was only partially successful because local circumstances in Libya pushed some Libyan Madkhalis to depart from the shaykh’s guidance and participate in the revolution. This highlights the influence that ideology, social base, and local leadership can have on an armed group’s cohesion and its potential role as a security provider (Badi, 2020). Libyan Madkhalis relied on tactical co-operation with historical ideological antagonists in order to gain influence and to fight Salafi-jihadi inroads in the country, but when relatively secure in its position, the group returned to its long-standing inclination towards exclusivism.

Furthermore, Madkhalis in Libya exerted their newly acquired power by enforcing their ideology. These actions rendered these Madkhalis powerful actors on a local, neighbourhood-level. Whilst not a crucial force in shaping political developments of a country, their actions did have repercussions for national politics because national institutions, such as the GNA, increasingly relied on these Madkhali forces for their own survival and partial broader security. In short, the case of Libya complicates the existing understanding of Madkhalis as committed allies of incumbent political rulers. Finally, these developments foreshadow why in 2023 Libyan Madkhalis are considered a hindrance to a peaceful, democratic future for Libya (El Gomati, 2021).

Conclusion

This article contributed to scholarship on the relationship between Salafis and politics and coercion. Where some scholars do so by studying Salafi actors who entered into formal institutional politics (such as running for political office and forming political parties), this article examined Madkhalis in post-2011 Libya who, we argue, politicized short of engaging in parliamentary politics. In doing so, these Salafis did not always follow, and indeed even attenuated, the proscriptive and motivational framing of shaykh al-Madkhali and his historical rejection of electoral politics, of disobedience to the political ruler, of taking up arms, and of forming (brief) alliances with ‘ideological’ competitors, such as Islamist actors.

Accordingly, this article contributes to scholarship on Salafi politicization by confirming the role of discrete incentives, opportunities, and constraints in these two domestic contexts linked to Salafi fears of state repression and also state co-optation, in explaining the divergent practices and framing practices of Algerian and Libyan Salafi Madkhalis between 2011 and 2019. Our analysis also underscored the importance of pre-2011 relations between these Salafi actors and regime/security institutions, and of intra-group dynamics and ideological contestation. With that, we contributed an SMT-led argument to the increasing intricacies of establishing Salafi movements as political or apolitical after the Arab revolts of 2011/12. Our cross-country comparative analysis demonstrates that, whilst transnational Salafi authority in Saudi Arabia informed the positioning of Algerian Madkhalis, it played a lesser role in Libya where national context was most important in shaping Madkhali's framing and practice.

Accordingly, the case of Libyan Madkhalis nuances the argument that where regimes fell in 2011/12, it became ‘logical’ for Salafis to join formal institutional politics ‘to compete with rival ideological trends for the control of public and/or institutional space’ (Cavatorta & Merone, 2015: 5). This is because while Libya’s Madkhalis undertook actions to control public and/or institutional space, these tactics were predominantly guided by a locally led, bottom-up security rationale, instead of the top-down establishment of political institutions. In contrast to the transitions from regime change to (initial) democratization in Egypt and Tunisia, arguably the short period between the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime and the inception of the civil war in Libya, meant that, unlike the formation of the Salafi al-Nur and Jabhat al-Islah parties in Egypt and Tunisia, respectively, in Libya Madkhalis did not encounter the requisite political opportunities to substantively rethink their historical repudiation of participation in institutional and oppositional politics before the overthrow of the regime.

Yet the weight of Madkhali's ideas and discourse also likely played a role in precluding significant shifts in Madkhali positioning vis-à-vis political participation, taking up arms, and (short-term) alliance-building with Islamists in 2011. In the context of a groundswell of nationwide protests, deep-founded Madkhali apprehensions about social disorder and chaos led to striking shifts in Madkhali framing about the (il)legitimacy of elections. The decision of Libyan Madkhalis to take up arms to provide local security in the absence of functioning state structures was consistent with, and indeed drew directly upon, Madkhali trepidation centred on the allegedly manifold and ever-present threats to social order, and thus insisted on the importance of (implicit or explicit) obedience to the ruler to forestall this. Typically, this leads Madkhalis to support incumbent regimes, as the example of the Madkhalis in Algeria and the case of the Libyan Madkhalis during the early weeks of the 2011 Libyan revolution (not to mention pre-2011) demonstrate. Yet, if the incumbent political ruler is deposed and social disorder and insecurity prevail, Madkhalis can militarize in an attempt to (re)impose social order, security, and Salafi norms – all whilst remaining quietists.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the interview participants for their willingness to speak with us and for providing critical insights. We are sincerely grateful for feedback by Dr Laurent Bonnefoy to previous versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Gerda Henkel FoundationDepartment of Politics and International Studies Doctoral Fellowship, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), Department of War Studies, King’s College LondonArnold Bergstraesser Institute.

Notes

1. Scholars have, however, criticized this notion for ‘celebrating some kind of “normal politics” as an idylised state’ (Wæver, 2011, pp. 466–7).

2. To map intra-movement dynamics and contestation over meanings, values, and identities (Buechler, 1993). As Carrie Wickham observes, framing ‘successes’ help ‘set the groundwork for riskier political contention’, such as violence (2004: 233). For more explanation on diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing, see Benford and Snow (2000).

3. Research Ethics Office, King’s College London, Reference Number: HR-17/18–6464, approved 8 August 2018.

4. Interview with the Algerian analyst, Akram Kharief, in Algiers, 1 April 2018.

5. The jamahiriyyah was Qadhafi’s unique construction of a political system.

6. Interview with Libyan Salafi Sheikh based in Tripoli, Skype, 5 December 2019.

7. Interview with Libyan Salafi Sheikh based in Tripoli, Skype, 5 December 2019.

8. Interview with Libyan Salafi Sheikh based in Tripoli, Tunis, 31 October 2019; Interview with Libyan acolyte of Madkhalism, WhatsApp, 5 February 2020.

9. Interview with former Libyan prisoner of Mitiga prison, Tunis, 25 October 2019; Interview with Libyan researcher, Tunis, 5 September 2019; Interview with Libyan religious scholar, London, 10 October 2018.

10. al-Madkhali, R. (2014) Kalimat ’an al-ahdath wa-l-mudhaharat wa-l-khoruj ’ala al-hakim, available at https://rabee.net/%D9 per cent83 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent 85 per centD8 per cent9-%D8 per centB9 per centD9 per cent86-%D8 per cent7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per cent3 per centD8 per centD%D8 per centF%D8 per cent7 per centD8 per centB-%D9 per cent88 per centD8 per cent7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centB8 per centD8 per cent7 per centD9 per cent87 per centD8perentB1 per centD8 per cent7 per centD8 per cent-%D9 per cent88 per centD8 per cent7 per centD9 per cent84perentD8 per cent%DperentB1 per centD9 per cent88 per centD8 per centC-%D8 per centB9 per centD9 per cent84/.

11. al-Madkhali, R. (2011b) Tahdhir min intishar din al-rawafid fi-l-jaza’ir wa ghayrha min baldan al-muslimin, available at https://rabee.net/%D8 per cent%D8 per centD%D8 per centB0 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB1-%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent86 per centD8 per centAA%D8 per centB4 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centB1-%D8 per centAF%D9 per cent8A%D9 per cent86-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centB1 per centD9 per cent91 per centD9 per cent88 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent81 per centD8 per centB6-%D9 per cent81 per centD9 per cent8A-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAC%D8 per centB2 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centA6/.

12. al-Madkhali, R. (2012) Al-tahdhir min al-fitan wa min al-dimoqratiyya wa mushtaqatih, available at https://rabee.net/%D8 per cent7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per cent%D8 per centAD%D8 per centB0 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB1-%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent81 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent86-%D9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent8A%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent82 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centB7 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centA9-%D9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centB4 per centD8 per centAA/#:~:text=%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centA6 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB3 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centA9 per cent20 per centC2 per centBB%20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAA%D8 per centAD%D8 per centB0 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB1 per cent20 per centD9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent81 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent8A%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent82 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centB7 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centA9 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centB4 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent82 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent87 per centD8 per centA7.&text=%D8 per centA5 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAD%D9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAF%20 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent86 per centD8 per centAD%D9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent86 per centD8 per centB3 per centD8 per centAA%D8 per centB9 per centD9 per cent8A%D9 per cent86 per centD9 per cent87,%D9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD8 per centA3 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAD%D9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAF%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent8B%20 per centD8 per centB9 per centD8 per centA8 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centB3 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent87.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Interview with Libyan acolyte of Madkhali, Tunis, 23 October 2019; Interview with Libyan acolyte of Madkhali, WhatsApp, 5 March 2020.

16. al-Madkhali, R. (2011c) Kalimat al-shaykh rabiʿ al-madkhali ʿn fitnat libya bʿd al-qadhafi, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sriMveeY9vA.

17. Ad-Daʼwatus Salafīyyah. (2011d) Shaykh Zayd Al-Madkhali advises the brothers in Libya, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQIcrO-2fYg.

18. Hafala also issued a fatwa urging citizens to ‘remain steadfast’ and not to ‘break ranks with the legitimate ruler’, calling the protesters al-Qaeda. See Wehrey and Boukhars (2019).

19. Interview with individual claiming to have been part of Zawiya Martyrs Brigade led by Mohammed al-Kilani, Tunis, 25 October 2019.

20. Ferkous, A. (2011a) Rappel et Condamnation à Propos des Suicides et les Événements qui Surviennent dans la Nation, available at https://ferkous.com/home/?q=fr/faits-conseils-5.

21. Interview with three rank-and-file Algerian Madkhalis, held in Algiers on 10 April, 14 April, and 22 April 2018.

22. Ferkous, A. (2011b) Des Différentes Catégories Révoltées contre le Gouverneur et des Sentences Relatives aux Révoltes Populaires, available at https://ferkous.com/home/?q=fr/art-mois-fr-64.

23. Ibid.

24. Ferkous, A. (2012) Mansab al-imama al-kubra (Dar al-’Awasim li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzee’).

25. al-Madkhali, R. (2012) Al-tahdhir min al-fitan wa min al-dimoqratiyya wa mushtaqatih, available at https://rabee.net/%D8 per cent7perentD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAA%D8 per centAD%D8 per centB0 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB1-%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent81 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent86-%D9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86-%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent8A%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent82 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centB7 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centA9-%D9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centB4 per centD8 per centAA/#:~:text=%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centA6 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB3 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centA9 per cent20 per centC2 per centBB%20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAA%D8 per centAD%D8 per centB0 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centB1 per cent20 per centD9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent81 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent8A%D9 per cent85 per centD9 per cent82 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centB7 per centD9 per cent8A%D8 per centA9 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centB4 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent82 per centD8 per centA7 per centD8 per centAA%D9 per cent87 per centD8 per centA7.&text=%D8 per centA5 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent84 per centD8 per centAD%D9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAF%20 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent86 per centD8 per centAD%D9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent86 per centD8 per centB3 per centD8 per centAA%D8 per centB9 per centD9 per cent8A%D9 per cent86 per centD9 per cent87,%D9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD8 per centA3 per centD9 per cent86 per cent20 per centD9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAD%D9 per cent85 per centD8 per centAF%D8 per centA7 per centD9 per cent8B%20 per centD8 per centB9 per centD8 per centA8 per centD8 per centAF%D9 per cent87 per cent20 per centD9 per cent88 per centD8 per centB1 per centD8 per centB3 per centD9 per cent88 per centD9 per cent84 per centD9 per cent87.

26. Hafala, M. Nasiha ila al-shabab al-salafiyya li-al-shaykh abu musʿab majd, available at www.safeshare.tv/w/oySHCDFyDw. n.D.

27. For discussions about Kara being Madkhali see e.g., Ali (2017), Badi (2020), International Crisis Group (2019), or Mannochi (2018).

28. Interview with Libyan acolyte of Madkhali, Tunis, 23 October 2019; Interview with Libyan acolyte of Madkhali, WhatsApp, 5 March 2020.

29. However, Qadhafi not only supported Madkhalism to bolster his religious legitimacy but he also tried to cosy up to Sufism again.

30. Interviews with five residents in Sirte between June and September 2019.