In the Shade of the Sunna

Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East

Aaron Rock-Singer

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English

University of California Press
31 May 2022

Middle Eastern history; Islam; Ethnic studies; Islamic studies

This book is an intellectual and social history of Salafism that moves beyond a focus on specific organizations or a commitment to the boundaries of particular nation states to trace the emergence of distinctly Salafi social practices from 1926 to the present. Salafis explicitly base their legitimacy on the word of the Qu'ran and the Sunna, and scholarship has taken them at their word by treating this movement as having sprung fully forth from Islam’s original teachings. Their distinctive public practices—praying in shoes, wearing long beards and short pants, and observing gender segregation—are thus understood to have a similarly ancient pedigree. Aaron Rock-Singer powerfully demonstrates that contemporary Salafism is in fact a creation of the twentieth century and that the movement’s signature practices emerged primarily out Salafis’ competition with other movements amidst the intellectual and social upheavals of modernity. Drawing from a range of media forms as well as traditional religious texts, Rock-Singer offers a three-dimensional portrait of a group often dismissed as a reactionary throwback to the past. In the Shade of the Sunna takes readers beyond the surface claims of Salafism’s own proponents—and the academics who often repeat them—into the larger sociocultural and intellectual forces that have definitively shaped Islam’s fastest growing revivalist movement.

By: Aaron Rock-Singer
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 363g
ISBN: 9780520382572
ISBN 10: 0520382579
Pages: 278
Publication Date: 31 May 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Aaron Rock-Singer is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin—Madison and author of Practicing Islam in Egypt: Print Media and Islamic Revival.

Reviews for In the Shade of the Sunna: Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East

""In the Shade of the Sunna [is] an indispensable reference for those interested in Salafism or Islam and, more broadly, for those intent on exploring the complicated but nevertheless constitutive entanglements between religious tradition and modernity."" * Journal of the American Academy of Religion * ""Rock-Singer has done the field a great service by publishing this book.... Theoretically robust, empirically rich...[this is an] excellent book that advances our knowledge of Salafism both in Egypt and generally."" * Die Welt des Islams * ""In this innovative new analysis of Salafism, Aaron Rock-Singer takes as his point of departure a series of publicly visible markers that are understood by Salafis and non- Salafis alike to differentiate the former from the latter. . . .This volume helpfully turns the study of Islamic reform toward the social – the everyday Salafi practices which are not profane even if they are mundane, but rather reflect a conception of Islam in which the concerns of religion move into new social domains."" * Islamic Law and Society * ""This text is an erudite, novel examination of the social history of Salafism and its project to fashion a distinct visual Salafi identity through a reconstruction of early Islamic history. It will be of interest to specialists and lay people interested in Islam and the Middle East and makes a valuable contribution to the field of Salafism studies."" * The New Arab * ""Aaron Rock-Singer’s In the Shade of the Sunna: Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East is a signal contribution to the study of modern salafism qua movement as embedded in larger societies, with special reference to twentieth-century Egypt and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia"" * Bustan: The Middle East Book Review * ""The book’s importance…lies in a dual shifting from the prevailing scholarship on Salafism: from ideology, law, and political participation to social practices; and from jihadist radicalism to social reform."" * The Journal of Middle East and Africa *