The Salafis: Islam, People and Power Boxset

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2016

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Wahhabism is the most misunderstood brand of Islam. It is more correctly called Salafism and is a fundamentalist interpretation of the faith, often associated with Saudi Arabia. The Salafis have long been split between jihadists who justify violently overthrowing their rulers and quietists who believe that even oppressive governments should be obeyed. Since the Arab uprisings, two new groups – Salafi democrats and Salafi revolutionaries – have come to the fore too.

Presenter Safa Al Ahmad talks to representatives of all positions in the current debate within Salafi Islam about the relationship between religion and politics.

(Photo: Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh. Credit: Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The extremist ideology is Wahhabism, a separatist exclusionary and violent form of Islam that
0:10.0	provides the recruiting grounds, support infrastructure, and monetary lifeblood of today's
0:15.0	international terrorists.
0:17.0	Welcome to the second edition of Islam, People in Power. I'm Safal Ahmed. This is a BBC World Service series looking
0:27.6	out the struggle in the Arab world to reconcile religion, politics, and violence.
0:34.0	The uprisings of the Arab Spring of 2011
0:41.0	showed the frustration many felt about their undemocratic dictatorial governments.
0:47.0	Some rulers were toppled, others fought back.
0:52.0	As a journalist and documentary maker, I've reported others fought back.
0:52.8	As a journalist and documentary maker, I've reported on these events, but I've also become fascinated
0:58.0	by the religious debates that have accompanied them.
1:01.0	Across the Arab world, Muslims have been asking themselves, what does Islam say about
1:05.9	dictatorship and revolution? And what role should Islam play in the way we are governed?
1:12.4	These are the big questions of our time.
1:15.0	In this series, Islam, people and power.
1:20.0	We're going deep into that debate.
1:22.0	We're meeting people from Islam's main sects and divisions.
1:25.0	Last time, I talked to the Sunni traditionalists and the Sufis.
1:30.0	This week, I'm talking to another Sunni group, one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented of the Islamic schools of thought, the Wahhabis, or as they're more correctly called, the Salafis. The Salafis are often framed as the bad guys, the violent jihadis. Their
1:49.6	critics tend to call them Wahhabis after an austere form of Salafi Islam promoted by Saudi Arabia.
1:56.4	When al-Qai the operatives hijacked airplanes to carry out the 9-11 attacks on the United States
2:01.7	in 2001, some U.S. politicians thought they knew the root causes.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.