Unpacking the Saudi-Salafi Connection in Egypt
Abstract
Against the common trope portraying Salafis as being remote-controlled by the Saudi state, the purpose of this chapter is to offer a more accurate analysis of the connection between Egyptian Salafis and Saudi Arabia. First, it aims at historicizing the Salafi movement in Egypt in order to present a nuanced account of its diversity and to properly introduce the diverse shades of its relationship to the Saudi kingdom. Second, it aims to show that the most organized and grassroots part of Egypt’s Salafi movement, the Salafi Call ( al-daʿwa al-salafiyya ), which is also the mother organization of Egypt’s most successful post-2011 Salafi party, the Nour Party, has not, since its creation in the late 1970s, enjoyed particularly close ties to the Saudi kingdom. The political behavior of the Nour Party thus needs to be accounted for as the reflection of domestic political calculations, without resorting to the alleged influence of external actors.