Why I Am a Salafi

Is it possible to develop a theory of Salafism, the school of thought which affirmsthe authority of the first three generations of the Prophet’s pious followers,that is based in heterodoxy, theological disorder, innovation, sensation,and the body? One normally finds in Salafi thought support for the Hadithcorpus over the Qur’an, a scathing critique of the madhhab system of scholarlyauthority, and a preference for a strictly literal interpretation of the Qur’an andSunnah. But with new scholarship in this field, we must recognize the widediversity of Salafi thought and begin to avoid reductive clichés.Fortunately, Salafism has recently come under increasing scrutiny in academicstudies. For example, we have movements such as “neo-Salafism” inpolitics and “sophisticated Salafism” emerging today, which are open to formsof knowledge outside the Sunnah. It is in this vein of new scholarship onSalafism and western expressions of Islam that Michael Muhammad Knight’sWhy I Am a Salafi (2015) should be read.The book combines an academic and journal-based reflection on the author’sevolving religious identity as an American Muslim. It begins in thewake of Knight’s experience of ingesting ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plantknown to promote spiritual epiphanies and insight. This experience was thefocus of his last book, Tripping with Allah (2012), that documented his psychedelicjourney. Why I Am a Salafi is written less as a travelogue or an openjournalformat than were his previous books Journey to the End of Islam(2009) and Tripping. For example, in Journey Knight documents his adventuresand travels in Pakistan and India, throughout the Middle East, to wherehe lives in America, and finally in Makkah, where he performs the hajj ...