Salafist nest in Europe, "the wolf in the house"

On 11 September 2001, the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington were attacked; on 11 March 2004, the Atocha train bombing in Madrid; From then on, jihad, Salafism and Wahhabism burst as terms in the public media sphere and became synonymous with terrorism; Al-Qaeda vindicated the attacks in Madrid, the USA and many others, drawing a picture of terror on an international level, acting in accordance with its Salafist ideology based on jihad as an armed struggle, a scenario that has not changed with the gradual disappearance of this organisation, nor with the death of its leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Instead, terrorism has become even more cruel with the emergence of Daesh, a radical organisation led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created in Iraq in 2010 with the aim of establishing the Islamic caliphate in Iraq and the Levant.

Salafism is an ideological category of Sunni Islam based on recreating the methodology of the first companions of the Prophet and the three generations after them. Salafists are those who adopt the jurisprudential, social and human sciences of their ancestors with the purpose of applying them to the contexts of contemporary life, considering it to be the purest legacy, absent of manipulation.

Jihad is a Salafist doctrine, through which the Jamaat al-Islamiyya (Islamist groupings) establish the legality of using armed struggle.

The ideologues of this trend have been developing methods and tactics for decades, indoctrinating a wide spectrum of groups and related movements that share the same reading of Salafi thought, although they differ from each other in dogmas and practices, depending on each era and spiritual leaders and the current political situation in which they live have been dictating fatwa (Islamic legal verdict) such as, for example, Jihad wa takfir, Jihad wa takfir, Jihad wa takfir and Jihad al-Islamiyya: Jihad wa takfir, the fatwa that inspired the Islamist grouping, which killed Egyptian President Anouar Sadat in October 1981, is a Salafi notion that means to brand Muslim rulers as unbelievers and to consider the citizens who support them as false believers, they wage jihad as an armed struggle to annihilate the rulers and to Islamise society by force.

The greatest exaltation of this version of jihad wa takfir was made by the theologian Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya, the most admired figure of the Salafists (1263-1328) known for his fundamentalist views, for which he was imprisoned on more than six occasions. Subsequently, this version regained interest in Saudi Arabia with Muhammad Ibn Abdel Wahhab (1703-1792), who took it up again in a severe manner, and Wahhabism, the most fundamentalist branch of Salafi Islam, was born, but its expansion remained limited to the Arabian Peninsula.

The Wahhabists took advantage of the petrodollars to give life to their thoughts and to Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya's writings and books, which were distributed free of charge, in Egypt, then in Morocco, Algeria and others, and later in the West: the two Americas and Europe.

In the mid-20th century, the notion of jihad wa takfir was reborn in Egypt by Sayyid Qutb (1906 - 1966), an Egyptian writer, poet and Islamist theorist, who joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1950 before they became active in political Islam. Sayd Qutb is considered one of the first theorists of jihad wa takfir thought in the 1960s. He was sentenced to ten years in prison for conspiring against the Egyptian government of the then Jamal Adel Nasser, and shortly after serving his sentence and being released from prison, he was sentenced to death for publications in which he questioned Egypt's rulers as unbelievers who had deviated from the true Islam, Sayd Qutb was executed in 1966.

In the West, the spread of Salafi discourse came in the 1970s in the form of cassette tapes and later in the 1980s on CDs brought by Muslim migrants after holidays in their countries of origin, years in which CDs or cassettes of reference clerics could be found in every Muslim's home. However, the great era of the spread of Salafism came in the 1990s through satellite TV, with 100 percent Salafi content, which could be tuned in from any corner of the world with the help of parabolic antennae.

Mosques and Islamic centres are another channel for the dissemination of Salafi thought. In Europe, it is estimated that there are more than 3,000 religious entities run on the basis of subsidies and donations from abroad.

By the year 2000, with the rise of the internet and social networks, Salafism seemed to be more deeply rooted, especially in European countries such as France, Belgium, Spain, etc., and a change in clothing was observed (increase in the use of hijab by women, for example). From 2010 onwards, the evidence is more than clear, and is materialised in the number of young second and third generation European Muslims who ended up infiltrating jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq (estimated at around 6,000).

This reflects the fact that the radical Salafist discourse has penetrated deeply in Europe and its promoters have been successful in spreading it. Daesh, for example, has been very good at using the internet, which has unfortunately helped it to recruit Mojahideen who travelled to Syria and Iraq, and also to locate lone wolves in the European orbit.

The attacks of the last three years - Paris, Nice, Brussels, Berlin, Austria, Barcelona and London - were carried out by lone wolves, most of them born and raised in Europe, each of them with their own personal story, cases of young people well integrated into European society with university studies, but also others suffering from marginalisation, identity crises, delinquency, etc. However, regardless of their profiles, their behaviour is closely linked to the jihadist doctrine.

So we have to think that today's Europe is not only faced with jihadist terrorist organisations and lone wolves, which it is, but also with a destructive, nefarious way of thinking that incites hatred and revenge against all those who do not share it, whether they are moderate Muslims or Westerners of other religions. So, lone wolves must be tried and imprisoned, but nothing is worthwhile as long as jihadist doctrine reigns in the minds of some European Muslims.

French President Emanuel Macron's October 2020 statement accusing the Muslim religion was not correct. The problem is not Islam in Europe, but radical Islamism; the focus must be on those who preach Salafi jihadist thought, on the sources of their nefarious ideological guidance, and on those who support them.

For European citizens to live in peace and be safe from jihadist terrorist attacks, promoting security is obvious, but, apart from that, the following must be taken into account:

Education is one of the key points, Europe is called upon to review the previous European Muslim integration projects, and to initiate a new gradualist strategy of intercultural education, with alternative plans that attract young people and stimulate their intellect, as well as offering them the opportunity to be protagonists in dynamising the processes of change. Creating alternative meeting places to religious worship (mosques) is important to encourage them to embrace diverse knowledge that will help them to develop a critical spirit and break down negative cognitions rooted in Islamic thought; music, theatre and art are effective tools for social transformation and are interesting elements for the positive interaction of European Muslim youth, who need to explore their roots and get the best out of their culture; the Muslim world is not limited to religion, but there is much beauty similar to other worlds. Without the involvement of European Muslim women and men, change will come too late.