Stéphane Lacroix, professor at Sciences Po, presents his most recent book on the socio-history of Egyptian Salafism
Chair: Théo Blanc (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna / RSCAS, EUI)
Discussants: Olivier Roy (RSCAS, EUI), Benoit Challand (EUI), Daniela Pioppi (L'Orientale of Naples), Alaa Badr (EUI)
21 June 2024, 14:30 - 17:30 CEST, Sala Triaria, Villa Schifanoia, European University Institute, 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) - Italy
Organized by Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUI and MED: Middle East Directions Programme, EUI
What is Salafism? And how has this ultraconservative movement grown in influence to take its place at the heart of Sunni Islamic normativity? What is its relationship with politics? And why is it important to distinguish it from the Muslim Brotherhood in order to decipher its evolution?
During this lecture, Stéphane Lacroix invites the audience to unravel these questions in this socio-history of Egyptian Salafism. Based on research carried out in Egypt from 2010 onwards, before, during and after the revolution that led to the fall of Mubarak and the rise to power of political Islam, this book traces the history of this movement and its players.
This publication introduces the reader to the Salafis' grammar of action and analyses the mutations that Egyptian Islam underwent throughout the 20th century, and until very recently. Far from constituting an immutable ideology, Salafism itself emerged transformed from this process, to the point of becoming a central player in the aborted democratic transition of 2011. It represents a major contribution to the study of the transformations of Islam and its relationship to politics in contemporary times.
Program
14:30 Welcome and introductory remarks by Théo Blanc
14:40-15:30 Presentation by Stéphane Lacroix
15:30-16:45 Discussion by Olivier Roy, Benoit Challand, Daniela Pioppi, and Alaa Badr
16:45-17:30
Q&A with the audience
About the speaker
Stéphane Lacroix is an associate professor of political science at Sciences Po, a senior researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) and the co-director of Sciences Po's Chair for the study of religion. His work deals with religion and politics, with a focus on the Gulf and Egypt. He is the author of Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2011), Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change (Cambridge University Press, 2015, with B. Haykel and T. Hegghammer), Egypt's Revolutions: Politics, Religion, Social Movements (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, with B. Rougier), and Revisiting the Arab Uprisings: The Politics of a Revolutionary Moment (Oxford University Press, 2018, with J.-P. Filiu). His most recent book, Twilight of the Saints: The History and Politics of Salafism in Egypt (recently published in French at CNRS Editions), will come out with Columbia University Press in 2025.
Contacts:
- theo.blanc@eui.eu
- valentina.gorgoni@eui.eu (logistics) ne
This workshop is organized by the Middle East Directions Programme at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.