Abstract:This article examines how intra-Salafi power politics has led to the politicization of religious purity and the fragmentation of the Salafi movement in Ghana. Analyzing the religious culture of Ghana,… Click to show full abstract
Abstract:This article examines how intra-Salafi power politics has led to the politicization of religious purity and the fragmentation of the Salafi movement in Ghana. Analyzing the religious culture of Ghana, I demonstrate how the Supreme Council for Islamic Call and Research (SCICR) emerged in the 1980s, as disagreements among SCICR members led to varying interpretations of the Salafi corpus. I demonstrate how this development was rooted in a power struggle among multiple actors that could loosely be categorized as Saudi- and non-Saudi-trained Ghanaian Salafis. Using archival resources and interviews, I argue that Salafi figures’ quest for religious authority generated differences in interpreting the religious corpus, leading to politicization of the Salafi notion of religious purity and fragmentation of the movement.
               
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