Salafism in Pakistan

Abstract

This chapter reviews the genealogy of Salafism in South Asia from the seventeenth century onwards. It focuses on Salafis that are known as Ahl-e Hadith in South Asia and have relatively few followers in Pakistan, where they have been active since the nineteenth century. The Salafis have maintained close ties with the Saudi religious establishment since the 1960s, ties which were reinforced when thousands of Arabs came to Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The chapter also deliberates the Ahl-e Hadith movement and its jihadi expression in Kashmir. The Jama'at Ahl-e Hadith, an elitist politico religious movement aimed at islah, originated in the early 1870s.