Definition of Salafi in English:
Salafi
nounPlural Salafis səˈlɑːfisəˈlɑfi
A member of a strictly orthodox Sunni Muslim sect advocating a return to the early Islam of the Koran and Sunna.
Example sentencesExamples
- The second tendency is represented by the Salafis, a global movement driven by a desire for religious purification.
- Sufis are typically more peaceful and less rigid than Salafis or Wahhabis, though there are militantly anti-Western Sufi leaders, as well.
- But on the ground, their own sectarianism and fanatical puritanism often lead the Salafi to reject or alienate those who might otherwise be their allies.
- Most are peaceful, but some Salafis have turned radical and take up arms, just as there were violent Lutheran peasant rebellions in early modern Europe.
- Militant Salafis object to Muslims shaving their beards.
Derivatives
noun
Salafism is a Protestant-type reform movement that seeks to go back to the original Islamic sources and slough off medieval glosses.
Example sentencesExamples
- There is consensus among a wide array of our contacts that Salafism is on the rise, with some characterizing it as "a wave sweeping the country" and "nothing short of a major societal shift."
- He met a well known intellectual who introduced him to radical Salafism, a doctrine which calls for a return to the purity of Islam.
- Salafism is a strain of Islam that seeks to restore the faith to the way it was in the days of the prophet Muhammad, 14 centuries ago.
- Although Ibn Taymiyya's medieval theology is important to the contemporary Salafists, Salafism had its true origins in modern times, in the reform movement at Sunni Islam's Egyptian core in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
adjective & noun
I'm a Sufi and you're a Salafist.
Example sentencesExamples
- He explores the influences of insiders and outsiders on Sunni Islam and the resulting rivalries and clashing philosophies that spawned the current Salafist reform movement.
- Radical Islam of the millenarian Salafist kind is also gaining in popularity among Muslim students.
- "I realized that they were introducing the Salafist formula, which does not recognize any Islamic traditions after the time of the Prophet," he told me.
- The Salafist movement in the Sunni Muslim world has been pursuing these same reforms for a century.
Origin
Arabic, from salaf 'predecessor', 'forebear'.