Salafi jihadism

Salafi jihadism, also known as Salafi-jihadism, jihadist Salafism and revolutionary Salafism, is a religiopolitical Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate through armed struggle. In a narrower sense, jihadism refers to the belief that armed struggle with political rivals is an efficient and theologically legitimate method of socio-political change. The Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts is "in their most literal, traditional sense", which adherents claim will bring about the return to "true Islam".

The term "jihadist salafists" was coined by French political scientist Gilles Kepel. Kepel used it to refer to international volunteers of the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, who, after the Soviet withdrawal and loss of American-Saudi funding, sought new paths to engage in jihad. Isolated from their national and social class origins and seeking to "rationalize" their "existence and behavior", some Arab volunteers as well as local Islamists expanded the targets of their jihad to include the United States and other countries with Muslim causes around the world.

Jihadist and Salafist elements of the new "hybrid" ideology developed by international volunteers (Arab-Afghan mujahideen) had not been joined previously because mainstream Salafis, dubbed by some Western commentators as "good Salafis", had mostly adhered to political quietism and eschewed political activities and partisan allegiances. Jihad had been viewed as potentially divisive for the broader Muslim community and as a distraction from the studying and practicing of Islam. Prominent Quietist Salafi scholars have denounced doctrines of Salafi jihadism as Bid'ah ("innovation") and "heretical", strongly forbidding Muslims from participating or assisting in any armed underground activity against ruling governments. Jihadist salafists often dismiss the quietist scholars as "'sheikist" traitors, portraying them as palace scholars worried about the patronage of "the oil sheiks of the Arabian peninsula" rather than pure Islam, and contend that they are not dividing the Muslim community because, in their view, the rulers of Muslim-majority countries and other self-proclaimed Muslims they attack are not actually part of the community, having deviated from Islam and become apostates or false Muslims.

Early ideologues of the movement were Arab Afghan veterans of the Afghan jihad, such as Abu Qatada al-Filistini, the naturalized Spanish Syrian Abu Musab, and Mustapha Kamel known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, among others. The jihadist ideology of Qutbism has been identified variously as the ideological foundation of the movement, a closely related Islamist ideology, or a variety of revolutionary Salafism. While Salafism had little presence in Europe during the 1980s, Salafi jihadists had by the mid-2000s acquired "a burgeoning presence in Europe, having attempted more than 30 terrorist attacks among E.U. countries since 2001". While many see the influence and activities of Salafi jihadists as in decline after 2000 (at least in the United States), others see the movement as growing in the wake of the Arab Spring, the breakdown of state control in Libya and Syria in 2014, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.